The first C & C Grocery store was started in 1947 by Doug Cummins and his brother Bob. Both were veterans who wanted to run their own business, so they used their savings to start the small grocery store in Charlotte, North Carolina. The store was immediately successful. The location was good, and
Doug Cummins had a winning personality. Store employees adopted Doug’s informal style and “serve the customer” attitude. C & C’s increasing circle of customers enjoyed an abundance of good meats and produce. By 1997, C & C had over 200 stores. A standard physical layout was used for new stores. Company head- quarters moved from Charlotte to Atlanta in 1985. The organization chart for C & C is shown in Exhibit
3.20. The central …show more content…

A new computerized supply chain management system for ordering and stocking had been developed, but after two years it was only partially implemented in the stores. Other proposed information technology (IT) initiatives were still “on the back burner,” not yet even in the development stage.
2. Roles of the district store supervisor and the store man- ager were causing dissatisfaction. The store managers wanted to learn general management skills for potential promotion into district or regional management positions. However, their jobs restricted them to operational activities and they learned little about merchandising, meat, and produce. Moreover, district store supervisors used store visits to inspect for cleanliness and adherence to operating standards rather than to train the store man- ager and help coordinate operations with perishable departments. Close supervision on the operational details had become the focus of operations management rather than development, training, and coordination. 3. Cooperation within stores was low and morale was poor. The informal, friendly atmosphere originally created by Doug Cummins was gone. One example of this problem occurred when the grocery merchandiser and store manager in a Louisiana store decided to pro- mote Coke and Diet Coke as a loss leader. Thousands of cartons of Coke were brought in for the sale, but the stockroom was not prepared and did not have