Domino’s CEO Richard Allison demonstrates delivery dominance during the pandemicDomino’s CEO Richard Allison demonstrates delivery dominance during the pandemic

Since the onset of the pandemic, consumers increasingly turned to food delivery to help weather the storm, and many restaurant companies had to scramble to pivot toward third-party delivery partnerships. But as a leader in delivery long before the pandemic began, Domino’s was able to continue delivering on their technology-fueled pizza delivery platform.

Domino’s CEO Richard Allison has long maintained that the chain has not needed to lean on third-party delivery, like many of their competitors. Instead, they were able to show their strength through in-house delivery platforms. 

“The big shift during the pandemic in the food space has been toward digital ordering, and here in the U.S., we were already running about 70% of our sales in the U.S. for digital, which leapt up to 75% by virtue of already having those elements of our business in place,” Allison told Nation’s Restaurant News. “We didn’t have to go out and scramble to get partnerships with third-party aggregators, which provide an important service at this time, but also charge some pretty high fees.”

Allison said that besides showing leadership in the delivery technology sphere, he was most proud of how he and his executive leadership team emphasized and valued clear communication with employees.

THE POWER LIST

“What we’ve tried to do is lead the business with our values front and center,” Allison said. “When things are changing so rapidly, as they have during this pandemic, you really have to make a lot of decisions based on your values, and for us that’s been putting people first and trying to do the right thing.”

From making sure they upped their virtual communication with franchisees, to doubling down on equity, Domino’s leadership team worked to create community during this particularly challenging year.

Where many companies were struggling, Domino’s picked up the slack: They expanded their team between March and August 2020 by hiring 30,000 extra team members to keep up with delivery demand — taking in many that had been laid off from other foodservice jobs. In October, the company reported its strongest sales in decades for the third quarter of 2020.

Despite unit growth and store-level customer quality issues throughout the year, Allison said in October that he was optimistic about Domino’s ability to “drive growth in the long-term.”

Since the onset of the pandemic, consumers increasingly turned to food delivery to help weather the storm, and many restaurant companies had to scramble to pivot toward third-party delivery partnerships. But as a leader in delivery long before the pandemic began, Domino’s was able to continue delivering on their technology-fueled pizza delivery platform.

Domino’s CEO Richard Allison has long maintained that the chain has not needed to lean on third-party delivery, like many of their competitors. Instead, they were able to show their strength through in-house delivery platforms. 

“The big shift during the pandemic in the food space has been toward digital ordering, and here in the U.S., we were already running about 70% of our sales in the U.S. for digital, which leapt up to 75% by virtue of already having those elements of our business in place,” Allison told Nation’s Restaurant News. “We didn’t have to go out and scramble to get partnerships with third-party aggregators, which provide an important service at this time, but also charge some pretty high fees.”

Allison said that besides showing leadership in the delivery technology sphere, he was most proud of how he and his executive leadership team emphasized and valued clear communication with employees.

“What we’ve tried to do is lead the business with our values front and center,” Allison said. “When things are changing so rapidly, as they have during this pandemic, you really have to make a lot of decisions based on your values, and for us that’s been putting people first and trying to do the right thing.”

From making sure they upped their virtual communication with franchisees, to doubling down on equity, Domino’s leadership team worked to create community during this particularly challenging year.

Where many companies were struggling, Domino’s picked up the slack: They expanded their team between March and August 2020 by hiring 30,000 extra team members to keep up with delivery demand — taking in many that had been laid off from other foodservice jobs. In October, the company reported its strongest sales in decades for the third quarter of 2020.

Despite unit growth and store-level customer quality issues throughout the year, Allison said in October that he was optimistic about Domino’s ability to “drive growth in the long-term.”

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