In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Editor Rachel Gignac talks to Paul Singh, vice president of operations at Grab-N-Geaux, a convenience-store chain based in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Safi Modi, head of growth at Modisoft, a technology software provider based in Sugar Land, Texas.
They talk about Grab-N-Geaux's integration of Modisoft services throughout its stores. The chain uses the tech inside the store, in the forecourt and for its restaurant.
“At Your Convenience” brings industry experts and analysts together with CSP editors to discuss the latest in c-store news and trends. From mergers and acquisitions to foodservice and technology, the podcast delivers the story straight to listeners in short-format episodes, perfect for the morning commute or a quick break at the office.
Listen to their conversation above, or read the transcript here, which has been edited for length and clarity:
Rachel Gignac: Do you want to both start out by telling me a bit about what you do for your companies?
Paul Singh: I'm the vice president of operations [at Grab-N-Geaux]. We're seeing new locations here in Southwest Louisiana. We've grown in the last seven years to these store counts we have today. Overall, seeing the technology side, operation side, expansion as far as what we're going to be going into the next few years and counting and the HR division of our business.
Safi Modi: My name is Safi. I'm with Modisoft. I am currently head of growth, and my role is to focus on our corporate strategy for the next five, 10 years to see how we can strategically work with clients like Paul to develop better products, more user friendly, and focus on technologies that are coming. Currently, I'm focusing on different aspects, whether that's working with Paul month-over-month to discuss what he wants from the software, doing research on what the industry is looking for. I focus on corporate strategy at Modisoft and see what we can do to better provide tools for clients, like Paul.
Gignac: What kind of tech solutions does Modisoft offer for the convenience-store industry?
Modi: Back office, which is your day-by-day operations that stores use. You can use online ordering capabilities, so if you're wanting to sell food on different platforms, you can do that. It also has loyalty programs, whether that's tobacco loyalty, scan data, or whether that's building your own loyalty programs. We also have our own point of sale (POS) system, which is focused on foodservice. So if you have a fast-food chain or are providing food or taco or coffee shops in your convenience stores, you can use our system on a vast range of things that allows you to bring customers from the pumps inside and be able to manage all your in store operations, whether it's the front or the back where the chef is or also running all your promotions as well.
Gignac: Paul, do you want to talk about what tech solutions you leverage from Modisoft?
Singh: Yes, so using Modisoft for about roughly six, seven years now, we're seeing that with Modisoft, we're able to manage our operations much better. From a database standpoint, our managers are able to do their paperwork on a daily basis for Modisoft. We're able to see overall core category management is being driven by Modisoft, from price changes to department level. Managing items and so forth. When it comes down to inventory management, Modisoft also has a feature for that, so we're able to see our beginning inventory numbers. We're also able to align all of our purchases going through Modisoft, meaning any vendor, whether it be the vendor, a vendor has some ACH [electronic payment companies], anything that's all driven through Modisoft for us to account better, also lottery as well. So lottery is a big function for the c-store space. So we're able to see our lottery over shorts. We're able to see our lottery counts. We're able to see activations, what's happening in lottery overall, within our stores and also fuel management. So when it comes down to field management, in the past, when we were very new to Modisoft and so forth, it's very difficult to deprive all our margins when it came to CPG and so forth. Now that we're seeing that the use of Modisoft is working out really well for us, and our inputs are coming out very well when it comes to the system itself, we're able to see a very fine line on a weekly basis, a daily basis, what our CPG is from different stores, different markets and so forth when it comes down to actual financial planning. When it comes down to financials as it is, Modisoft also offers us a good way of understanding what our PNLs [profits and losses], even if the PNL is not fully published or a full close for the month, we're able to see kind of the trends are looking like the stores within a certain period of time.
When it comes to employee management, in a way, I know Modisoft was working on some processes for us, on in play management when it comes to payroll and so forth. But there's ways for us to use Modisoft to track time, clock in, clock out. So that's an ease of use for us as well, for an all-in-one purpose system. It handles a lot of the things that we need. So like I mentioned, you know, price clip management is a huge feature for us, especially with the level of price change because of inflation in the last 12 to 24 months. It's a very ease of use. When it comes to cost changing, Modisoft has a way to tell you, "Hey, this cost came in at a very high price. That's your last cost that was delivered to you." So it triggers us, lets us know sort of things that we need to change right away. And then overall, just the back end of it. So just looking at it from a financing standpoint, reconciling invoices to the bank, seeing your invoices from field jobbers to the bank, credit card fees and so forth, and reconciling all those small, small things. It's an all in one system. It did take us some time to obviously get really involved into it and really understand it from a whole basis. But now that we're fully using it and fully optimizing it, within the last 36 months, we feel that the system is working really good for us.
Gignac: Yeah, and you mentioned it being an all in one system. How does that work?
Singh: It does work together. You have to look at it from different aspects of the business, right? So, from a fuel side, there's a way to enter your fuel invoices. There's a way to reconcile your fuel invoices, so your fuel field margins and fuel inventories are correct. When it comes from our product side, you're able to enter your field invoices, you're able to enter your account numbers, and we haven't even done every month, so we're able to enter our audit numbers. So as items are sold, it's going to dictate your inventory as department sales are done throughout the days and the future inventory. So everything is tied together. As long as the functionality of the system is being worked on. As far as you know, if we don't key in invoices, or if we don't key in certain things, then the output is not right. So at the same time, we work really hard at this, I think, in the last 36 months. And so if you can probably answer that a little bit more, Safi, but our system today that we're using within our teams, and what we're trying to input to Modisoft, it's so important to work together. It's working really well.
Gignac: Yeah, and Safi, do you want to comment on why Grab-N-Geaux and that type of store lends itself well to the technology?
Modi: So I got to know Paul in the past two years, but Paul has been part of been a client for us for quite some time, but somebody like Grab-N-Geaux and Paul, what they do is they understand the whole aspect of the business they need. They don't want to use five, six different platforms to get their entire store reporting right. So Paul is working with CPGs and the price book management, which correlates to his category management that, in turn, also relates to his inventory. Does he have enough inventory to make sure that the promotions are are being done? How can he also leverage his fuel prices to convince people to come inside, like, "Hey, my fuel is priced at this, why don't you come inside and be able to gather more of sales?" Convenience stores are a penny profit business. How can you drive it up? The more you know about your business, the more you're able to do it. Paul not only uses every aspect of our platform, but he also gives us feedback, right? I will be the first to say that no software out there is perfect. There's always room for improvement, and working with Paul on a day-by-day basis allows me and my product team to continuously reiterate on it. Last week, literally, Paul made a suggestion that suggestion is already underway and potentially going to be released soon. So that part of feedback that we get from Paul, who uses our product from A to Z, allows us to make a better product for a wide range of customers.
Gignac: And then Paul, from what I've seen, Grab-N-Geaux has a pretty big restaurant aspect to it, right?
Singh: A story about grab and go, we started about seven, eight years ago in Southwest Louisiana with two stores here in Lake Charles. From that time, we didn't have foodservice offered those two locations. It was, at the time, just an apart, asset business. So, as we grew to the third or fourth location, we had the concept of smokehouse. The original founders, Tran and Rahim, they actually had a store in Texas where they were really big on barbecue. So the third or the fourth location, they introduced barbecue back into our mix of stores as we grew so in Louisiana, Louisiana is known for Cajun food, right? So it's known for great hospitality and good Cajun food. But at the same time, the customers here, which came so close to Texas, still had an inch for a good barbecue, right? So as we expanded, you know, we brought in our pits into our locations. We brought in actual pits, the backboard locations, and slowly started converting all locations in this hand to Grab-N-Geaux smokehouses. Twenty-eight locations have a very high presence of food today, roughly around 18-20% of our total sales is food. So we're very highly dependent on food. We know that's the big step in convenience. I feel like in convenience today, consumers are looking for a good value, but they also know convenience stores have very good food now. So I think the mix we have the promotions we're running with food and the quality. We're running with food, because, I mean, obviously brisket is not a cheap meat, so we're trying to deliver the best we can be able to provide some kind of value to the best.
Gignac: How does the technology work in between the c-store and the foodservice portion?
Singh: So today is much better for us, because we also use recipe management at this time, I think Modisoft is developing something for us to even better detail the recipe management portion of it. Originally, we worked with Meez, which is recipe management company to help us better understand our margins, our costs and our ideal costs now that we're getting into everything being scanned, everything is putting through the register correctly to Modisoft, and we also have updated cost for our food items from rescue management as their system gets built out. I think the technology piece of it will be driven mostly from release off in the future with us. Another aspect of the report would be also just understanding what is a stale item in foodservice, what is not a stale item in foodservice and being able to identify the last three months, six months, to these promotions and foodservice work or not. So there's some times in our in our run rate in the last five years. We quite didn't know what's working, what's not working right. So we would expect to put out 20 sandwiches, and expect that all 20 sandwiches are going to sell. In reality, we didn't sell, or maybe half of them sold. So it's a good way for us to now, gridlock item sales with Modisoft. We can put it by department. You can see it by store. We can see, "Hey, what stores items are starting at, what what part of the day?" We can see what items are selling every day for which store. We're able to set in stores built to this, we're able to send stores how much they should be making every single day, every single week. It also lets us know how much they should be purchasing as well. So from a technology and inventory side, that's where we're at today. We have not quite done anything with delivery yet. I think that's our next step. As well being in Louisiana and seeing how everything so far away from certain places, we feel like that delivery at some stores will come next, and that's something we'll focus on.
Gignac: Is there anything else that other of you would like to add?
Modi: I would just add for technology the piece, I feel like, for other c-stores out there, is leveraging a system that can talk to both your existing fuel POS and your your foodservice POS. A lot of times your what the trend is, you order the kiosk in the back and you make the payment up front. Can you find a way to take a payment in the back as well and be able to save time? A customer wants us to come in. They're filling up fuel outside. They want to come in, grab food quickly order from the kiosk, pay right then and there and bring it up, rather than having to pay at the cashier and go to the front and scan a QR code. And also, what Paul alludes to is we do plan on bringing out recipe management, very similar. It allows stores like Paul to be able to leverage all the items they sell and track inventory at a much more granular detail, which will allow him to be able to now compare in much more finer detail of which specific food items are contributing to his fuel sales overall.
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