Yum! Restaurants-led Pizza Hut is betting big on technology. The brand is investing technology at each every step from taking orders to delivery of the pizza.
Elaborating more on the same, Unnat Varma, who has recently been promoted to Managing Director, Pizza Hut (Asia Pacific Operations), Yum! Restaurants, said, “We are using technology in sorting out our kitchens. So kitchens are becoming better in terms of layout, efficiency, optimising labour. Apart from this, we are also using technology to schedule riders to make sure that pizzas reach hot and fresh to the consumers.”
“To ensure a seemless experience to the customers we have again using technology. We have a new online experience for customers, it is one of the best friction-less experience. From getting customer’s location to ordering the pizza, the entire process has been reduced to a four-step journey,” he added.
The brand is also not shying away from using drones to deliver the pizzas in the near future.
“We are closely watching the drone delivery space. However, there is no current successful model. There has to be regulation, approval from the Government that drones can fly in the air space and to understand that how does it work for food as food is very atypical, it cannot loose temperature and it has to be accurate, it has to reach in a certain stipulated time and it has be delivered straight. We will host the space, we are very open, we are transforming ourselves digitally and technologically, if this space helps us unlock some future possibilities, we will definitely go ahead with it,” Varma revealed.
Enhancing Customer Experience
To add to the overall consumer experience, the brand has been constantly improving its products.
According to Varma, “These days the customer experience is always around product and product excellence and there we have been making a continuos effort to make our product more delicious, fresh and hot but in addition to that it is about the entire experience – how fast customer can place the order, how fast cusotmer can locate our store, can we give cusotmers a great value deal, can we understand their requirements, can we customise, can we help them earn and let them use some loyalty points in the future.”
Expansion Plans
Pizza Hut India plans to open over 200 more outlets in India by 2022 to expand its retail footprint. Currently, it operates 422 stores in the country.
“‘Pizza Hut is a very democratic brand, it is used by segments of the consumers in the market, so our attempt is to go to as close to consumer as possible, it could be going after the shoppers in the shopping mall or it could be going close to residential areas, or going to captive locations where we have people working, so we are open to all kind of opportunities that exist. We are even open to open our outlets at airports and railway stations too,” asserted Varma.
The pizza chain runs a franchise model in the country, where investments for opening new outlets mainly comes from franchise partner.
