Circle K - a 800 lb. gorilla with too many independent heads
Pros
Operations team has clearly defined career path for their employees, decent benefits for non store employees (when compared to similar companies), company is aggressive in expanding into new geographic territories. Company has strong tradition of promoting within at the business unit level.
Cons
Couche Tard is broken up into separate business units across the US and Canada. Some units are very similar culturally (especially the heritage Circle K units) because of Couche Tard's tradition of absorbing stores and leaving operation teams in place. The company does very well on revenue generation and M&A, but the independence of the business units (roughly 500 stores each) strains the lean retail business model that Couche Tard has become famous for. The regions often have different operating structures, accounting systems, advertising, global purchasing, fiscal responsibility, marketing programs, fuel agreements that under cut any "clout" that management can muster by using CT as a single company. Couche Tard's reputation of being driven to save money on the front end has given them an impression in the industry of being cheap at any cost. This is great for quarterly/yearly results, but the rapid growth has hidden the long term sunk costs in overhead and operating costs of constantly negotiating service contracts, buying new software, marketing systems and purchase agreements.