Outlook Leadership Launches With Inspiration, Insights, Data

CHICAGO —CSP’s groundbreaking digital Outlook Leadership Community launched this week with original convenience-store content and leadership insights from consultants, retailers, consultants and more.

The virtual event launched with a welcome and introduction from Group President of Convenience Jim Bursch, provides innovation inspiration from David Schonthal, a Kellogg professor and IDEO business designer, draws retailer insight from Sheetz CEO Joe Sheetz and taps current data and trend information from Technomic Principal Donna Hood Crecca.

Here’s a brief summary from each keynote speaker …

In this session titled The Creative Advantage, David Schonthal, professor of innovation and entrepreneurship for the Kellogg School of Management and business designer at IDEO, explores how creativity is inherent in all of us—and that intentionally accessing and harnessing it unlocks durable business advantages for managers and organizations alike.

"There's a mythology that creativity is born out of places of abundance with lots of resources and wide open spaces and blank canvasses,"  he said. "But I would argue that the most profound creativity tends to be born out of constraint. It tends to be born out of a lack of resources, not an abundance of resources."

In the process, David shares some foundational principles and techniques for business creativity, specifically, asking the right questions, reframing the world around you, identifying ways to make an impact in times of constraint and mustering the confidence to do something about it.

In the first Talks From the Top conversation with an industry leader, CSP’s Mitch Morrison talked with Joe Sheetz, CEO of Sheetz Inc., Altoona, Pa.

They discussed Sheetz’s experience as a retailer adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Everybody has got their challenges in these crazy times. Certainly nothing's normal, and no two days are the same,” Sheetz said.

For Sheetz, that not only involved protecting store employees and customers, but also rolling out new services such as curbside pickup. He offered details on the strategy behind that rollout and how it differed from the company’s typical pre-pandemic process. He also talked about “working out the kinks” that come with accelerating the process, and how customers reacted.

In a session titled "The State of C-Store Foodservice: What's Now, What's Next," Donna Hood Crecca, principal for CSP’s sister research firm Technomic, Chicago, outlined how the pandemic has affected convenience-store foodservice and what operators can do moving forward.

“Elevated safety and sanitation measures really are crucial to generating trust and making consumers feel comfortable in patronizing c-stores for foodservice,” Crecca said. “But even with all this, who is coming through the doors may be different now, as more than two-fifths of c-store patrons say that their daily routine has changed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.”

Click here to hear Crecca discuss new consumer behaviors and expectations amid the pandemic, Technomic’s foodservice forecasts and actionable ways for retailers to progress their businesses during this time.

The Outlook Leadership Community platform will provide more than 30 educational webinars, interviews with key industry retailers, networking discussion boards and new-product information. The community is free to join for retailers and will be live through Dec. 14.

Click here to join Outlook Leadership Community.