CEO: Domino's sees promise in India

NEW DELHI: India is all set to replace the UK as the largest international market for Domino's outside its home market of the US, J Patrick Doyle, president & CEO at the second-largest pizza chain in the world, says.

"It is pretty clear that in the next few years, India will become the largest market outside the US," Doyle told ET. As of October 31, Domino's India had 650 restaurants across 137 cities, "just 100 shy of the UK", he said.

Doyle was in Delhi to attend the wedding of the daughter of Hari Bhartia, promoter of Jubilant FoodWorks, Domino's master franchisee in the country.

He spoke exclusively to ET on India's growing presence in the $1.7-billion Domino's empire, how localisation is the key to success, Domino's relationship based on trust with master franchisees across 73 countries, and of course, the Domicopter, Domino's pizza-delivering drones.

There maybe a buzz on Jeff Bezos' Amazon using drones to deliver books and other stuff, but Domino's in July already posted a video on YouTube showing a Domicopter delivering pizza. "It's an interesting idea and we tried a couple of those things in the UK," Doyle said.

Though the concept is on the drawing board, one thing is certain. The 50-year-old affable CEO is upbeat on India and wouldn't rule out Indians' participation in top management of the pizza chain.

"The number of CEOs in American companies with Indians up there is a long list as India has been a phenomenal source of talent...it's (getting an Indian in top management) certainly possible," he said.

Doyle is particularly pleased with the company's localisation experiments in India and how pizzas with Indian flavours are finding shelf space internationally. "There are pizzas from India that are now being sold in the UK, like paneer pizza, chicken tikka masala pizza and kheema do pyaza pizza," he said, adding the great joy of taking a pizza international is the ease with which one can localise such an offering. "The crust, the sauce and the cheese can be the same everywhere but the topping, which is where a lot of flavour comes from, varies and can easily be localised."

In India, 50% of the offerings at Domino's stores are localised.

Localisation goes hand in hand with forging a great equation with master franchisees around the globe, or the local partner and management teams. "Local partners can take decisions to localise on their own and need not call our headquarters at Ann Arbor, Michigan, to find out whether or not we're okay with their interpretation of the local taste...if the quality is there and we know the supplier, they can move very quickly," he said.

It is the warmth in the relationship that matters to Doyle more than structure and processes. "If there's trust, nobody is checking the rule book every time to see if they're doing the right thing," he said.

Domino's relationship with Jubilant has been forged over 17 years. "Having a local partner in India has been a great part of our success here and Ajay (Ajay Kaul, CEO, Domino's India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal) has been around for eight years. When he came in, we were 100 stores here, and the management team has been very stable, with almost no change over 7-8 years," Doyle said.

It's no secret then that he is ebullient on Jubilant and does not plan corporate-owned stores here. In the US, about 10% of the 4,900 restaurants are owned by the company.

"Though in theory it's easy for me to look at what has been happening in India and wanting to own a bigger part of that, in practice, the business has been this successful because of the local leadership.... If we become directly involved, I don't think we'll get the same pace of growth," he said.

Doyle, who ran the international business for Domino's before taking over as the third CEO in the company's 53-year-old history in 2010, would know a thing or two about herding his pack of franchisees.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, aided by his predecessor David Brandon, he changed the recipe of the pizza in his first year at the helm.