This is part of the Nation’s Restaurant News annual Top 100 report, a proprietary ranking of the foodservice industry’s largest restaurant chains and parent companies.
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By honing technological advances, Domino’s posted a 16.9-percent increase in U.S. systemwide sales in the Latest Year, and grew its domestic unit base by 2.6 percent.
The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Pizza chain, which ranked No. 2 behind Pizza Hut among Pizza chains in the Top 100, reported $4.8 billion in domestic sales in the Latest Year. Domino’s has built itself into a technological powerhouse by tapping into the growing number of potential customers who want to order online, and especially from the convenience of their smartphones.
While Domino’s traces its history back to the first glimpses of the information age in 1960, it now has more than 12,600 units in more 80 countries that rely on the company’s own technological advances.
Customers can order via app, voice, smart TV or even social media with a pizza emoji. Kelly Garcia, Domino’s vice president for e-commerce development, likened the company’s technology efforts to Lego bricks. Every platform and every system is built to adapt to future uses, he said.
That helped Domino’s rank No. 1 in estimated sales per unit growth, rising 14.5 percent in the Latest Year, to $937,100.
Keys to growth:
Consumer-facing technology. In 2015, Domino’s added ordering by text — including emoji — to its arsenal of digital capabilities, and the widgets helped boost sales. “There’s an estimated 8 trillion texts sent every year worldwide,” Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle said. “With so many people using their devices to communicate in this way, it made sense to allow our customers the chance to order pizza that way, too.” The system allowed customers who had a pizza profile at Dominos.com to place an order by texting the phrase “Easy Order,” or simply the pizza emoji, to DPIZZA, or 374992. That’s in addition to such capabilities as ordering via Twitter, Samsung Smart TV, Pebble or Android Wear smartwatch apps, and the Ford SYNC AppLink.
Souped-up delivery cars. In October 2015, Domino’s introduced the DXP delivery car on a limited basis, chauffering pizzas in customized, built-in-warming-oven comfort. Delivery represents about two-thirds of Domino’s business, or about 400 million pizzas a year in the U.S. alone. And franchisees are asking for more: This summer, Domino's said it would roll out an additional 58 DXPs across 23 markets in the U.S., bringing the total number of DXPs to 155. In addition to the built-in warming ovens, the cars are reconfigured to hold as many as 80 pizzas, and special compartments carry side items and sodas.
New executives. At the end of the year, Domino’s hired a new chief people officer, Judy L. Werthauser, who also was named executive vice president. Werthauser reports directly to Doyle and oversees the human resources organization. She was also tasked with maintaining what Domino’s called a “people-first culture” at company-owned units, which employ 12,000 workers.
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