Domino’s India Logistic management

In 1960, two brothers who were students of the University of Michigan - Thomas S. Monaghan (Thomas) and James S. Monaghan (James) - bought the store for US$900. In 1961, James sold his share of business to Thomas. The pizza business did well and by 1965, Thomas was able to open two more stores in the town - Pizza King and Pizza from the Prop. Within a year, Varti opened a pizza store in a neighborhood town with the same name, DomiNick's Pizza. Thomas decided to change the name of his first store, DomiNick's Pizza, and one of his employees suggested the name Domino's Pizza (Domino's). In 1982, Domino's Pizza established Domino's Pizza International (DPI) that was made responsible for opening Domino's stores internationally. The first store was opened in Winnipeg, Canada. Within a year, DPI spread to more than 50 countries and in 1983, it inaugurated its 1000th store.

When Domino's entered India, the concept of home delivery was still in its nascent stages. It existed only in some major cities and was restricted to delivery by the friendly neighborhood fast food outlets. Eating out at 'branded' restaurants was more common. To penetrate the Indian market, Domino's introduced an integrated home delivery system from a network of company outlets within 30 minutes of the order. Goutham Advani (Advani), Chief of Marketing, Domino's Pizza India, said, "What really worked its way into the Indian mind set was the promised 30-minute delivery." Domino's also offered compensation: Rs.30/- off the price tag if there was a delay in delivery. For the first 4 years in India, Domino's concentrated on its 'Delivery' strategy.

The CEO of Domino’s Pizza India is a man in hurry. Ever since he took over as the CEO of Domino’s in November 1999, he had been frantically reworking the pizza chain’s strategy. In late 1999, Indocean Chase, the private equity fund bought a 25% stake in Domino's operations in India from the Delhi-based industrial family, the Bhartias, who held Domino's franchise in India. Domino's told investment bankers at the fund that it planned to go in for an initial public offering (IPO) in the next two years. Indocean Chase advised Domino's to go beyond its 16 outlets in Delhi to exploit the potential in the pizza delivery business. Unless a well-thought-out expansion plan was put into place, the IPO was unlikely to find too many takers. As part of its expansion plans Domino's revamped its entire supply chain operations, from sourcing raw materials to shipping them for processing at a central location to delivering it to the customer's.

Initially, Domino's had a simple model. It had three self-contained commissaries in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore which bought their own wheat, tomatoes and other ingredients, processed them, and then delivered them in refrigerated trucks to each outlet. However, volumes were expected to increase when Domino's planned to open new outlets. Therefore, the existing model had to be revamped. Bhatia said, "It's crucial for us to build a low-cost supply chain operation which takes costs out of the system and in turn gives us greater pricing flexibility in the marketplace."

The logistics model adopted by Domino's offered some obvious benefits including lower transportation costs, cheaper procurement and economies of scale. Domino's had already cut out the duplication in procurement and processing of raw materials across each of the three commissaries. The old model of self-contained commissaries had another disadvantage: adding new outlets did not translate into greater economies of scale. Domino's also identified specialty crops in each region. The commissary in that region was entrusted with the task of processing that specialty crop. For instance, the commissary for the eastern region in Kolkata was responsible for buying tomatoes, processing them and then sending them to all the other commissaries. Similarly, the northern commissary had to deliver pizza bases. This way, Domino's minimized duplication as well as the dangers of perish ability.

Domino's hoped to lower its prices by saving from the logistics model and third-party transportation. In April 2000, Domino's announced a cut in pizza prices to Rs 49. Domino's was also targeting large corporate offices, railway stations, cinema halls and university campuses for faster growth. It had already established an outlet at Infosys corporate office in Bangalore and at three cinema halls - PVR in Delhi, Rex in Bangalore and New Empire in Kolkata and growing at a faster rate. Domino's also classified its outlets into Super stores, Express stores and Regular stores. Super stores were those, which generated high traffic and therefore had more counters than the regular outlets (the outlet in Churchgate, Mumbai). Express stores were those where people were expected to walk in and order rather than ask for home delivery (university campuses, offices or cinema halls).

References :  http://www.icmrindia.org/free%20resources/casestudies/Domino-Logistics20Management.htm

Shashi Bharti has done his B.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from NIT, Hamirpur and has worked in Tata Consultancy Services for 24 months