MANAGEMENT /LEADERSHIP SPECIAL .....................Doyle's Law

Doyle's Law 
 

You can either lead organizations through structure and processes or you can lead them through relationships, says J. Patrick Doyle, President & CEO, Domino’s

Pizza is best served in slices. But when J. Patrick Doyle, President & CEO of Domino’s, the second largest pizza chain in the world, holds forth, he clearly enjoys every slice of life, juggling quality time spent with wife Techy and two teenaged daughters, or skiing or even teeing off over “a little bit of bad golf”. But perhaps what the 50-year-old enjoys most is building relationships and nurturing trust with thousands of franchisees across 70 countries. In Delhi to attend the wedding of the daughter of Domino’s India master franchisee, Hari Bhartia, Doyle takes a break from the merriment to talk exclusively to CD and ponder over India’s role in his empire and how businesses are changing in a flattening world. Edited excerpts:
What is the India view from Ann Arbor?
It is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for us now. In terms of restaurants, it’s now the second largest outside of the US and after the UK. It is pretty clear that in the next few years, it will become the largest. India has probably a hundred more restaurants than the UK now.
What lesson did you draw from your India experience that can become a learning for CEOs who aspire to localize here?
The route to that is through trust. It is really important to find the right partner and spend time to get to know each other. When you’ve established a relationship, you can move very quickly. There are two ways of leading an organization. You can either lead through structure and process or through relationships and people. There’s always a mix of both. Organizations that move fast tend to be those where the relationships work. Our business model is of a master franchisee in the market, with local management, local knowledge. They don’t have to call up Ann Arbor to ask whether we’re okay with their interpretation of the local taste. If the quality is there, they can move very quickly. We’ve certainly done more localization in India than in many markets.
Following the global financial crisis, Domino’s experienced a historic 14.3% quarterly gain under your stewardship in 2010, which coincided with your coming to the helm. How did you achieve such a feat—one of the largest same-store sale jumps ever recorded by a fast food chain—in such a short time?
There were two things. This was a brand that has always been known for delivery but at some point, we realized it needed to be more. I ran our international business for five years, from 1999 to 2004 and it was growing much faster than our US business. Part of the reason was that food quality outside of the US, honestly, was better than inside the US. Step one was getting the pizza right. Step two was to communicate that. In the end, what really broke through with our customers was to say that the pizza wasn’t as good as it should be. We fixed that and we think the new pizza is terrific.
Why was Domino's rebranded by removing ‘pizza’ from its logo in 2012?
We decided that the logo itself needed some updating. As we were looking at it, we decided that first of all, everybody knows that Domino’s is pizza, and the example I would use is Nike. Now Nike used to be Nike Sportswear. And there was a time when they said we don’t need to say ‘Sportswear’ anymore. A brand is more confident if it doesn’t need to be defined anymore. For us, it’s simpler, it’s more forceful, and we do sell some things other than pizza.
Do you consider yourself to be in the food business or the logistics business?
We’re primarily in the food business, even though delivery was our original differentiation. In India today, it’s 50% delivery and 50% in the restaurants. In the US, it’s 60% delivery and 40% restaurants. So food is first and foremost. But technology is incredibly important for us. Almost 18% of our business in India is now online delivery. We were the first to have a digital platform nationally among restaurants in India.
You’ve often attributed Domino's success to its franchisees. How do you gain acceptance from franchisees on major initiatives?
There are great advantages in working with a franchise system. It may differ a little bit in international versus the US, but at the end of the day, we’re an incubator of entrepreneurial talent. In the US, we have about 1,000 franchisees. But outside of the US, with our master franchisees, it still means we are harnessing the strength, the passion and the energy of entrepreneurs.
With some of your stores in India registering the largest footfalls globally, do we see some thrust, if any, on corporate-owned stores rather than pure-play franchisee operations?
No. There’s magic in having local leadership of these businesses. We’ve been the fastest growing restaurant company. Our international business has been growing faster than any other major global restaurant company over the course of the last 3-5 years. We’ve grown faster than Starbucks, McDonald’s, Yum!, Dunkin’, and part of that is really because of our model.
    It’s easy for me to look at whatever has been happening in India now and say I’d like to own a bigger part of that. Theoretically, yes, but in practice, I think it’s growing because of the local partnership.
How are you reallocating resources in a multi-speed world?
Fortunately, we’ve got a lot of growth and it makes it much easier for us. It’s less about reallocating resources; more about bringing in more resources. Our international business is growing very fast and so we’re adding resources there. The other area where we are clearly adding significant resources is technology. In our headquarters at Ann Arbor, that’s been the fastest growing group. We have 600 people there and almost a third of them are in technology.
What challenges does the march of consumerism throw up as it evolves from a physical to a digital platform?
It’s a tremendous opportunity. The world is clearly moving very fast towards digital. Brands used to connect with people almost only in the physical world. Well, that relationship now is a two-way relationship. People want to give feedback to the brands. They expect to be listened to. If they’re not listened to, the brand will fail. So I think recognizing that dynamic of how the consumers’ relationship with brands has changed, is vital to being successful in the digital age.
A fallout of the global financial crisis has been heightened awareness on ethics and corporate social responsibility in B-Schools. Do you think ethics can be taught?
I think you can refine those things a little more, but fundamentally, you have to hire the right people. You’ve got to have absolute confidence that they’re doing things the right way.
Who are your role models in business?
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. I’ve learnt a lot from my predecessor, David Brandon. As an organization, what Samsung has been doing is incredible. The speed at which they’ve gone from making products that were similar to others to doing dramatic innovation, is amazing. Google is doing terrific things and they’re good partners of ours. In the restaurant business, there’s still great opportunity for people to come in and drive things more aggressively, make changes faster than they have.
What style of leadership have you adopted to lead Domino's?
When you build a very clear sense of what the brand is and you get everybody to buy into that and you have the right people working with the brand, you just keep going back to the idea that trust enables speed. When the relationships are there, organizations can move much faster. I think it’s really part of why we’ve been so successful.
What have been the most striking changes you've seen in your career?
When I entered the business world, there were a lot of companies that believed you could have strength in a single market and be successful. The answer today is very clearly that you have to be working towards a global presence to be successful. The other shift is very clearly around digital— the speed of information, the relationship with customers, the analytics— are dramatically different

J. Patrick Doyle, 50
President & CEO, Domino's
Theatre of Operations
Service restaurants and delivery of pizzas and fast food
Family Resides with wife and two daughters in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Favorite cuisine Cuban home-made food by wife, Techy, who is also Cuban
Bragging rights In 2010, the year Doyle came to the helm as CEO of Domino’s, the company experienced a historic 14.3% quarterly gain. It was the largest quarterly same-store sales jumps ever recorded by a major fast-food chain.

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