How We Build for the Future

New Store Development is a key pillar of our growth strategy as a business unit as well as globally.?Why??The very essence of our business model is built around market share and scale.?With scale comes innumerable benefits around efficiency, economy, and reach.?These further enable market share, which is the name of the game.?Our approach at Pizza Hut META to this is really quite simple – it starts with “best in class partners”, those with commitment, capital, capability, and the right culture.?We then work alongside these franchisees in partnership to strategically define our approach to each market – what are we going to build, where, and at what pace.?After we have agreed these key points, we then move into a comprehensive site identification and review process that allows us to maximize our penetration, ensuring that we are accessible to as many of our customers as possible.?The next step is to then design our assets in such a way that they are brand building from a “look and feel” perspective, but also efficient in their layouts and configurations, thus enabling our team members to work smoothly and seamlessly to deliver on our brand experience. One of the key points here is that the customer experience can never exceed the team member experience, so making sure we have team member “friendly” stores is critical. Each store we open represents not only an opportunity for existing and new customers to experience our brand, but also internal career growth for our future restaurant leaders and new job creation within the community.

Store Development comes on the heels of franchisee profitability, which is a key metric that we maniacally focus on.?Profitability leads to a virtuous cycle of store builds – what franchisee would not want to put their money in an investable proposition that yields great returns??Profitability is two-fold – ongoing operational expenses (OPEX), and start-up capital expenditure (CAPEX).?Controlling both is essential as the former ensures continuous returns, and the latter impacts the payback period and therefore the attractiveness of the investment.?The META Development team is focused on both….we don’t just build stores and wipe our hands clean; rather we work across all functions to make sure these stores are returning.

The foundational glue for successful Development is always the people and the key relationships between franchisee and franchisor – without both of these being robust and authentic, the entire apparatus would crumble.?Here at Pizza Hut, we invest large amounts of time, resource, and energy to ensure that we have the best teams in place, working alongside each other in alignment towards a common goal.?We may not always see eye to eye, but constructive debate always leads to better solutions.

As we look to the future, we are ever evolving especially in light of COVIDs jarring of the world and the way consumers behave.?We are today leaner and faster than we have ever been, with a keen eye on technology, efficiency, and customer experience.?And our assets reflect this in terms of their designs – more youthful and grounded in authenticity; layouts that enable a more seamless delivery and takeaway experience including pick up cabinets and lanes; and instore and e-commerce technology that speaks to ease of ordering and a sense of “modern cool”.?And we get better as we build more stores and deepen our reach.?By shrinking our trade zones, we get more efficient at serving our customers.?“Time is the enemy of food”, therefore the closer we are to the customer, the better their food will be.

And at the end of the day, that’s what we are all about – great food, and great moments!