MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Northwestern University’s Dr. Michael Mazzeo delivered the closing session at the NACS Leadership Forum on Friday, focusing on strategy and how c-stores can use their unique strengths to grow. Mazzeo, who is an associate professor of strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at the university, told attendees about his “Roadside MBA” project, a series of eight road trips from 2010 through 2015 that focused on meeting with the owners of small and middle-market companies across the United States.

Mazzeo’s session, “Strategy Lessons from the Roadside,” explored the goal and outcome of his road trips: to develop materials that would deliver strategy ideas through the experience of small and middle-market firms (deliberately eschewing large companies). The project eventually led to a book of the same name in 2014.

Mazzeo shared some road trip video, noting that similar to the companies he visited, c-stores need to think about their business strategy, understand their company’s competitive advantage and leverage that advantage for growth.

But, be forewarned: “There’s only one iron-clad law of strategy,” Mazzeo said. “The correct answer to any strategic question is: ‘It depends.’” He emphasized that the trick is to figure out what “it” depends on, being careful to note that if the answer is not “it depends,” then it is not a strategic question.

Mazzeo explored a few examples of businesses he and his team visited (a boutique coffee shop, a local sports store and a small chain of bar/restaurants, for example), pointing out that their paths to growth were often different. He talked about the importance of a value creation proposition (VCP), a statement of how an organization can create distinct value for its target customers. During an a more interactive moment, attendees spent time on their own VCP worksheet, listing resources and capabilities, which led to a specific VCP for their company.

“What is the value proposition? What is it exactly that the customers are valuing?” Mazzeo asked the audience. Based on his research, he challenged c-store owners to build a competitive advantage around scalable resources, exploit their superior capabilities to facilitate growth and anticipate performance and growth conflicts.

“If you don’t have the things that are necessary to provide value to your customers, then they’re going to go away,” he said. “[But] you don’t want to have too many things on your list when it comes to resources.”

Some resources are expensive and don’t create value, Mazzeo said. “Make sure that every resource you’ve got has a reason and a connection to what the customers want and need on the other side,” he said.

Lisa Dell’Alba, president and CEO of Square One Markets Inc. in Pennsylvania, moderated Mazzeo’s session and led a Q&A portion at the end. In response to an audience inquiry about knowing your customer base, Mazzeo noted that Apple has less than 20% of the worldwide market share of smartphones, but they’re still one of the most successful companies in the world because they’ve discovered who their customers are.

“If you know who [your] customers are, you can serve them extraordinarily well,” he said. “Sometimes being smaller is what makes you better as a company.”

The NACS Leadership Forum, a two-and-a-half day, invitation-only, world-class event that brings together retailers and suppliers, wrapped up Friday. 

Photos from the NACS Leadership Forum can be viewed on the NACS Facebook page.