Domino’s Pizza boss on the tech innovations shaping the company: Queensland Business Monthly

Jacinda Tutty
September 25, 2015
The Courier-Mail
Gripping a piping hot pizza, a Domino’s delivery man charges down the hallway towards the front door of an inner-city apartment. Inside, the pizza’s hungry recipient impatiently watches the red dot on their smartphone’s GPS Driver Tracker app inch closer and closer to their front door.
The knock comes, the door is flung open and the delivery man hands over the goods with a smile. Another smooth operation done in record time.
“Delivered in 17 minutes! Yeah!” he exclaims giving his Apple smartwatch a satisfied tap.
But this isn’t an ordinary delivery man, and this is no ordinary delivery. This is Domino’s chief executive Don Meij, the man at the helm of the multi-million-dollar pizza empire, who’s shaking up the fast food industry – one technologically advanced delivery at a time.
Don Meij, CEO of Domino’s Austarlia, putting the finishing touches on a Supreme Pizza, Hamilton – Picture: Steve Pohlner
While it might seem unusual for a high-flying executive to schlep it as a delivery boy, this isn’t Meij’s first time on the road. He’s been delivering pizzas since he joined what’s now known as Domino’s Pizza Enterprises when it was a small pizza outfit called Silvio’s as a fresh-faced Redcliffe 19-year-old, 28 years ago.
This latest delivery adventure, testing the company’s new GPS driver tracker, was posted on the Domino’s Facebook page, but Meij is just as likely to turn up incognito behind the counter of one of Domino’s 1500 stores worldwide.
“I think it’s important for people at the corporate level to work in the stores,” Meij says.
“They change so fast you can’t just guess what it’s like, you have to physically experience it. You have to live the job.”
Sitting in Domino’s head office in the Brisbane inner-city suburb of Hamilton, Meij cuts a striking figure. Surrounded by flashing television screens, glass walls and the latest smartphone technology, he looks at ease among the buzz of different technologies. Dressed in slim-cut jeans, tailored blue blazer with colourful socks peeking out over well shined black loafers, it’s fitting Meij’s image is more tech-entrepreneur than fast-food king.
While the business is built on selling affordable pizza to the masses, with Meij at the helm, Domino’s has transformed into one of Australia’s most intriguing tech companies with operations in New Zealand, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Japan.
Domino’s GPS Driver Tracker is just the latest in a host of innovations helping the pizza company boost its sales, joining a bulging portfolio of products including Pizza Moguls and a new-look website, all aimed at enticing punters worldwide to change the way they eat pizza.
Hearing Meij speak about the company’s ambitious focus, it’s difficult not to be infected with the same feverish excitement. And it seems investors aren’t immune either. Selling at just $2 a share when it listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2005, Domino’s reached a high of $42 this year, a shareholder return of close to 2000 per cent since it went public.
It cemented itself as a darling of the sharemarket, more than doubling its earnings in the space of two years to a net profit of $64 million last financial year.
Domino’s Pizza CEO Don Meij still gets a kick out of delivering pizza.
Meij’s own 2.13 per cent stake in the business is now worth about $73 million.
“I think the reason investors love Domino’s is we’re still at the beginning and there’s so many big things to come,” Meij says.
With such phenomenal share growth, some have questioned whether the company could be overvalued. But with so many products and plans still in the pipeline, Morningstar analyst Farina Parsons says Domino’s has a lot of legs yet.
“Their stock is expensive but it does have a lot of opportunities and I guess the biggest reason for its success is its strong management team,” Parsons says.
“Meij is a very enthusiastic, outgoing CEO and has done a great job. The company has said it wants to change the habits of customers and increase the number of consumption. If they succeed, that’s an incredible boost. They’ve also hinted at possible acquisitions in Europe and if that proceeds it will be a huge area of growth.”
With the share price hovering around $40, Parsons says investors are unlikely to see the same spectacular growth but insists there are still gains to be made if they continue on their path.
In what resembles a real-life Cinderella story, Meij worked his way up the corporate ladder to buy his own Domino’s franchise in Caboolture with his then-wife Esme in 1996 and within five years he had a network of 17 stores.
“One of those stores became the second biggest store on the planet for all of Domino’s worldwide,” Meij says.
A file picture of Meij when he was a franchise owner.
Meij originally was asked to step into the role of general manager when Silvio’s bought the licence for Domino’s Australia from the US in 1993 but after the two companies merged three years later he decided to test his skills back in store.
By 2001, he and a fellow franchise owner Grant Bourke, now a non-executive director of Domino’s, merged their stores and bought a 25 per cent stake in Domino’s Australia. Meij became chief executive, starting a new chapter for the company.
“We grew from there, opening in New Zealand and listed in 2005,” he says. “We bought France,
the Netherlands and Belgium from the US in 2006 and we acquired Japan two years ago.”
When he talks about Domino’s latest technologies, Meij has a face like a kid in a candy store. His eyes crinkle, his smile widens and he bounces in his seat like he’s impatient to take off, too excited to sit still when the future he envisions promises so much. And with increased sales from the GPS Driver Tracker, Pizza Moguls platform and upcoming 15 and 20 minute delivery guarantees, Meij has no shortage of things to be excited about.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Meij says with a smile. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between work and fun because we’re all over the world doing lots of tech stuff.
“My day is full of innovation and excitement, and of course we’re in pizza. How is that not fun?
“When you’re creating things as a team that you know people are going to be engaging with or consuming two, three, five years from now, it’s incredible.
“It’s like we’re designing the future.”
Domino’s have announced they have 40 big innovations in the works but Meij is tight-lipped about the details.
“If I told you some of the things right now, it would sound like we’re losing our marbles because it’s so big,” he says.
“But so would of some of the stuff we’re doing now if I told you two or three years ago.”
Don Meij at the company’s Hamilton office. Picture: David Kelly
For a man who’s led Domino’s to profit almost every quarter since the company listed, Meij is incredibly humble.
When asked about the innovative apps and technology which have been so integral to Domino’s recent success, he’s quick to shrug off the accolades and credit a strong team for their big ideas.
Pizza Moguls is arguably one of Domino’s best innovations, where customers can design their own pizzas and sell them through social media for a cut of the profits. There’s more than 70,000 active members with some moguls making an excess of $67,000 a year for their efforts.
Its been Meij’s ‘baby” and has been one of the biggest digital disruptions to hit the fast food industry.
But it may have never come about without Meij’s willingness to listen to his customers and embrace new ideas.
“Our televisions in the office stream our Facebook feeds and one day this guy popped up with an idea for a Spicy Island Pizza. I rang our PR girls and we brought this guy into the Luv Lab, where we test pizza ideas, to see what it was like.
“It was pretty good so we put it up on the menu to see what happened. All we did was advertise it on Facebook and our online ordering and, from the moment we turned it on, it went to the eighth most popular pizza.
“We were spending $5 million to get a pizza anywhere near there and instead we spent $20,000 and realised, wow, people really like to buy from people.”
Moguls is now the world’s biggest pizza menu with more than 200,000 options, helping boost Domino’s sales to more than 90 million pizzas annually. While that may seem like a whopping number, Meij is determined to carve out an even bigger slice of Australia’s $11 billion fast food industry.
Pizza mogul’s Shaun Blackburn with dad Craig Blackburn with their own recipe pizza’s made at Domino’s across the country. Picture: Steve Pohlner
The group’s new guarantee to deliver pizza within 15 or 20 minutes for an extra cost is one of the key ingredients to making that dream a reality.
“To go after burgers, fried chicken and sandwiches we have to target one of the biggest things those guys have, which are drive-throughs, making up 60 per cent of their sales,” he says.
“It’s not a business we’ve ever attacked in the past … but with our 15 and 20 minute guarantee we’re going to make drive-throughs look ridiculously outdated.”
Not one to ever be content to sit back and rest on his laurels, Meij also wants to change the way people eat pizza.
At present, only one in two Australians eat pizza compared with 93 per cent of Americans. But instead of seeing this as a bad number, Meij says it’s cause for excitement.
“If you’re a regular pizza eater, you’re only eating it every 12 to 14 days, but if you’re a hamburger eater you could eat it two or three times a week,” he says.
“The opportunity for growth is exceptionally big. Believe it or not, before we went into New Zealand, Kiwis ate less pizza than Australians, today they eat 30 per cent more. It just shows it can happen.
“It’s the same with Japan, we may never get the Japanese into pizza, but even if we don’t we’re still going to sell a hell of a lot if we’re there. Even if they buy just one or two more a year, my god, the opportunity is massive.”
A Domino’s Pizza.
It’s going to be a hell of a ride for a guy who didn’t even like the taste of pizza.
“When I was really young I wouldn’t eat pizza, I thought it had a weird smell,” he says. “But now I’m addicted, I can’t eat enough of it, if it’s on a menu anywhere I will order it.”
Growing up with a business-minded father, Meij said he quickly developed an entrepreneurial streak nurturing both his creative and analytical sides with a mix of arts and economics education at university.
Although he once fancied himself as a policeman and a teacher, he says both aspirations shaped his leadership style which is focused on helping staff grow inside the business.
“To be a really good leader and innovator you have to be a good teacher, so those skills were really positive,” he says.
“A lot of tech innovators have a passion for the arts … and then they happen to love tech, computing and analytics.
“If you can marry all of that together, you’re more likely to be successful. Otherwise, you become a function in one of those areas. You’ll become part of a team rather than being a lead innovator.”
Dominos Pizza Hamiliton manager Aden Kruegar. Picture: Glenn Barnes
Domino’s staff respond to his nurturing leadership with loyalty. Meij’s personal Facebook page is overflowing with stories of Domino’s team members who have stuck with the company, rising up the ranks to own their own franchises or take jobs overseas.
“That’s the biggest thrill, the other stuff we do is really fun, but it’s the people that make this job great,” he says.
Meij is not all work and no play. In his spare time he’s happy to be distracted by his family of four children and often takes time out to stay active and ride his bike.
But work is never far from this thoughts. Meij is an avid technology reader and adventure traveller and is always on the lookout for the next big thing that could take Domino’s Australia’s 29 per cent stake in the pizza game to the next level.
“I love bringing the team over to Silicon Valley every year to see the future of something and think about how I can bring it back to Domino’s,” Meij says.
“The way things get disrupted so fast now, that’s how we feel we need to be about pizza.
“Soon it will be so 2015 to have a pizza delivered in a pizza box. I really can’t think of a more exciting time to be a tech business.”
This article first appeared in the October edition of Queensland Business Montlhy