Who would have thought ten years ago that you’d be able to order a pizza over the phone…without talking to anybody.
That was the goal of Pizza Hut executives – which have “a history of taking calculated risks” – said company Chief Information and Digital Officer Baron Concors at a session at the National Retail Federation’s NRFtech: The IT Leadership Summit.
At a meeting of the senior team in early 2009, Concors said someone pointed out that every executive – ranging in age from 40-65 – had an iPhone. With the insight that smartphone adoption would begin to soar, the company decided they needed to be ahead of the curve in mobile retailing to remain competitive in the cutthroat pizza space. Originally, the company thought their app would target young people (specifically, young males who didn’t want to cook) but quickly realized the iPhone was being adopted quickly among consumers in older age groups.