Adam Brotman, Chief digital officer, Starbucks Corp.
Later this year, when Starbucks customers are able to not only order and pay for their drinks and food on their smartphones, but also have them delivered, they’ll have Adam Brotman to thank.
As Starbucks Corp.’s chief digital officer, Brotman is in charge of its core digital businesses, including web, mobile, social media, loyalty, e-commerce, Wi-Fi and the Starbucks Digital Network, and he leads the company’s in-store digital and entertainment teams. He spearheaded mobile ordering, which debuted in Portland, Ore., in December and will roll out nationally this year, as well as delivery, which is slated to debut in select markets in the second half of 2015.
Brotman previously told NRN that he thought the technology would give “a huge competitive advantage going forward” and “significantly drive throughput of incremental transactions.”
Though he earned a law degree and was editor of the Law Review at the University of Washington School of Law, in the mid-1990s Brotman traded a legal life for entrepreneurship, raising venture capital to launch his PlayNetwork, an entertainment services provider, and serving as CEO and president for more than a decade. He joined Starbucks in 2009 and shortly thereafter began driving innovation, rolling out the chain’s free Wi-Fi and the Starbucks Digital Network. Since then, nearly all restaurant chains have been following Starbucks’ lead.
Fast Company named Brotman one of its Most Creative People in 2012, and what excited the brand most was Brotman’s ability to do what competitors could not, without reinventing the wheel. In Brotman’s profile reporter Rachel Z. Arndt wrote:
“Most impressively, he did this without a convoluted new technology (cough, MasterCard PayPass, cough) or unproven system (cough, using PayPal in the real world, cough).”
— Fern Glazer
Tim Cook
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Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc.
When Apple Inc. introduced its Apple Pay platform last October, it did what competitors have been promising for years — launch an app that could revolutionize the concept of the long-awaited digital wallet.
“We think it is going to be profound,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the time. “It’s going to change the way we pay for things.”
Apple Pay, a digital wallet that stores users’ debit and credit card information, enables restaurant and retail guests to pay for orders via their personal smart phones. Using near-field communications, or NFC, the system electronically initiates secure payments between contactless payment terminals and shoppers’ smart devices that support Apple’s iOS platform.
At launch, Apple had established partnerships with the major credit card companies — American Express, MasterCard and Visa — and said the service would be accepted at more than 220,000 merchant locations. According to Cook, users activated over 1 million credit cards on the service in its first 72 hours.
Restaurant powerhouses McDonald’s, Starbucks, Panera and Subway, were among the early adopters of the platform, and Dunkin’ Donuts said it was considering adoption as well. The possibilities of ease, speed of service and digital sophistication will be too obvious for restaurants to ignore as the consumer grows increasingly mobile.
When Cook took the helm at Apple in 2011 after the death of Steve Jobs, he had big shoes to fill. Cook’s presence has been less flashy than Jobs’ and some observers have questioned if he has what it takes to continue Apple’s dominance. But Apple Pay could prove to be one of the most impactful product rollouts under Cook’s tenure.
It remains to be seen how readily Apple Pay will be adopted by consumers though. Access could be an initial challenge, as the app is currently only available on the new iPhone 6 and Apple Watch devices.
Still, many say Apple is the most likely candidate to evolve the mobile commerce landscape — and his imprint on foodservice will not be slight.
As technology writer David Pogue said in a tweet: “If anyone has a chance to make wireless payments ‘a Thing,’ it’s Apple.”
— Deena Amato-McCoy
J. Patrick Doyle
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J. Patrick Doyle, President and CEO, Domino’s Pizza Inc.
Imagine half of your restaurant sales coming from digital devices. That’s the case for Domino’s Pizza, which said last year that nearly 50 percent of sales are placed online, or with smartphones or tablets.
With that type of digital acumen, Domino’s Pizza Inc. president and CEO J. Patrick Doyle has established himself as a leader who isn’t afraid to make bold moves.
While many pizza brands were quick to move to digital ordering, Domino’s continues to invest heavily in creative methods to get its products into customers’ hands.
Last fall, Domino’s introduced a voice-ordering app, which generated 200,000 orders before its official launch in October, and plenty of media coverage, including on-air live trials. In early 2014, it struck a partnership with Ford that allows customers to place hands-free orders from Ford vehicles equipped with a dedicated wireless system.
“We are determined that we’re going to maintain and grow our leadership in digital ordering,” Doyle said last fall. “We’re absolutely not standing still.”
Thinking differently doesn’t stop with digital. Doyle is well known for a major menu move just months after assuming his role, when he became the public face of a “mea culpa” marketing campaign acknowledging consumer dissatisfaction with the chain’s pizza — and then retooled all recipes.
The move paid off. The chain has posted positive U.S. same-store sales results for the past 14 quarters.
International expansion has also been key to growth under Doyle’s tenure. The chain opened more than 2,000 restaurants abroad in the last 5 years. Domino’s now operates more than 11,000 restaurants in more than 70 international markets, and global sales hit $8 billion in 2013.
Doyle, who has been with Domino’s for 17 years, always aims to apply bold thinking to drive continued success. The chain is careful not to rely too heavily on the discounting employed by many in the pizza segment, and instead strives to offer value through new products and improved customer experience.
— Deena Amato-McCoy
Wyman Roberts
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Wyman Roberts, President and CEO, Brinker International Inc.
Wyman Roberts reached the two-year mark as CEO of Brinker International Inc. on Jan. 1, but he was no newbie when he took over from former CEO Doug Brooks in 2013.
Roberts had spent seven years with Brinker, during which he ran both the Maggiano’s Little Italy and Chili’s Grill & Bar chains. As he stepped to the helm of Dallas-based Brinker, Roberts was tasked with continuing the five-year turnaround plan that began under Brooks.
Shortly after taking the reins, Roberts told Nation’s Restaurant News he realized Brinker’s 1,574-unit Chili’s and 48-unit Maggiano’s brands needed to be reinvigorated.
“We couldn’t just continue to run the same plays,” he said.
Brinker has stepped back from driving traffic by discounting — it’s “not the long-term solution,” Roberts told Wall Street analysts at the end of fiscal 2014 — and is focusing on boosting its results by embedding value in the menu and using technology to invigorate the guest experience.
Chili’s, for example, has committed to tabletop tablets that allow guests to order, play games and pay at the table. The full rollout to all domestic franchised restaurants was to be completed right at press time, pushing Chili’s ahead of other casual-dining brands testing similar technology. Soon, the tablets also will be linked to the chain’s new loyalty program and will offer guest feedback.
The initiatives seem to be paying off. After a slight earnings drop in fiscal 2014, which ended in June, Brinker bounced back in the
September-ended first quarter of fiscal 2015, with profits up 12.1 percent, systemwide same-store sales up 2.4 percent and slight traffic bumps at both Chili’s and Maggiano’s.
— Mercedes Cardona
Nigel Travis
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Nigel Travis, CEO, Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc.
When Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. needed a successor to veteran CEO Jon Luther, who was semi-retiring to the role of chairman in 2008, the company turned to Nigel Travis.
Travis, who had been CEO of Papa John’s International Inc. since 2005, helped that brand overcome a prolonged sales slump — and he did it mostly with broad development and rollout of a cutting-edge online ordering system. Customers and Wall Street responded: Sales and quality marks rose, and its stock price followed in step.
Travis has had a similar impact at Dunkin’ Brands, taking his forward-thinking embrace of technology to drive customer engagement with the well-loved brand.
He’s clearly used his experience in the pizza sector — known for its early adoption of digital ordering — to make Dunkin’ Donuts a player in the mobile movement.
In 2012, the chain debuted its app and loyalty system, DD Perks. The app had 8.6 million downloads by last October, and the rewards platform boasted more than 1.3 million members as of August.
Dunkin’ hasn’t stopped development and innovation on its app, however. The company said last fall it planned a mobile feature that would let its app users order food via their devices and pick it up at nearby locations. The “click-and-collect” technology not only is expected to improve order accuracy and speed for the customer, but also drive throughput at Dunkin’ Donuts units.
And finally, like a handful of other brands, Dunkin’ also said it was considering adopting the Apple Pay system.
When Travis joined Dunkin, the company operated 7,988 Dunkin’ Donuts units and 5,874 Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream shops. By late 2014, those counts had grown to approximately 11,000 and 7,400, respectively.
Meanwhile, the brand is aggressively pursuing growth beyond its East Coast home base, particularly in the western United States and in China.
— Steve Coomes
Jeremy Stoppelman
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Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp
Restaurateurs may love or hate him. But they can’t ignore him.
In the decade since Jeremy Stoppelman co-founded the game-changing review site Yelp, it has accumulated more than 67 million business reviews and countless more visits by consumers looking for information about such local businesses as restaurants, salons, food trucks, and more. Yelp reported that it had 139 million monthly unique visitors in the third quarter of 2014 alone.
Under Stoppelman’s leadership, the site has made amateur critics out of millions, shaping the way consumers choose where to dine out and how they interact with restaurants before, during and after the dining experience.
Now he wants to take his site to the next level with a reservations function. The SeatMe platform, which Yelp purchased in 2013 and is integrated into the site’s experience, allows visitors to make a reservation while posting a review, according to an article in PC Magazine.
“By bringing SeatMe to Yelp, we can further enhance the consumer experience by extending the convenience of easy, online reservations directly through Yelp to thousands of currently unserved businesses,” Stoppelman wrote in a blog.
Yelp’s rise to prominence hasn’t been without controversy.
Restaurateurs have long had a tenuous relationship with the site, which puts a modern twist on the business adage that “happy customers tell a friend; unhappy customers tell everybody.” Customers’ thoughts — the good, bad and ugly — are broadcast to the world with a single click. And the quality of the reviews can make or break a small business. A 2011 Harvard Business Review study found even a one-star increase in a Yelp rating can lead to between a 5 percent and 9 percent increase in revenue.
Yelp has also come under fire for allegedly pressuring businesses to advertise in exchange for higher ratings, a claim that was dismissed last fall when a federal appeals court said the company could continue to set advertising and pricing policies as it saw fit.
Stoppelman, meanwhile, shows no signs of slowing down, telling Vanity Fair earlier this year that he brushes off criticism and other obstacles as a natural part of creating a “disruptive, game-changing product or service.”
— Deena Amato-McCoy
