The localization of Seven Eleven in Bangkok

Abstract

The 7-Eleven convenience store franchise is now the largest chain store of any category in the world surpassing even McDonald’s when compared by store numbers. As 7-Eleven is a multinational marketer and distributor of various modern style foods and services, which are all packaged together as a service promoted as ‘convenience’, the franchise is in a unique position to influence consumers and tastes in various parts of the world. In Thailand, but in Bangkok especially, the 7-Eleven franchise brand has been borrowed by one of Thailand’s most successful multinational companies, CP Group, and one of the world’s largest agribusiness firms. Bangkok possesses one of the heaviest concentrations of 7-Eleven stores of any city in the world. As such, the 7-Eleven franchise has been at the center of CP Group’s latest plans for driving growth and international competitiveness since they experienced debt problems after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. This thesis takes the view that this has allowed CP Group, primarily through the strategies it has employed as Thailand’s sole franchisor of the 7-Eleven brand, to have significant influence on local food tastes and perceptions of convenience. Equally important, if not more so, is the role of local consumers in localizing 7-Eleven in Bangkok. The process of adaption and adoption of foreign influences is often referred to academically as localization. This study uses the theory of localization to make the argument for the unique ability of local actors to shape and give character to processes that take place both within and outside national borders. Although this thesis is still written from the viewpoint of an outsider, the interdisciplinary methodology employed seeks to understand the processes of localization more in terms of what is happening in Thailand rather than outside of it. This counters and deepens arguments about the supposed homogenizing influences of globalization. Furthermore, an outside perspective applied to examining the localization of 7-Eleven in Bangkok allows for processes in Thailand to be compared with and partially reconciled with similar but not identical processes that are taking place in other parts of the world. As such, it is argued in this thesis that the localization the 7-Eleven franchise in Bangkok offers an exploration of how modern convenience is institutionalized and shaped by local actors. As far as comparisons with external actors go, it is argued that processes of development, growth, multinational business practices and demographic change share similarities between and across countries.