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In\n2014, Domino’s India sold 120 million pizzas, twice the number of\nburgers McDonald’s served in the country in the same year. The figures\nmay have changed somewhat since, but India’s prodigious craving for\npizza, especially with a generous helping of paneer or chicken tikka,\nremains unchanged.\n
\nThe man who helped stoke this appetite for the Italian staple is Ajay\nKaul.
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\nIn\n2005, 52-year-old Kaul became the chief executive of Jubilant\nFoodworks, which owns the franchise rights for Domino’s in India,\nNepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. From then on, he expanded the chain\nfrom just 93 outlets to over 1,062 stores across the country, making\nIndia the largest market outside the US for the American brand.
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\nOn\nSept. 19, after over a decade at the helm, Kaul announced his\ndeparture. The precise reasons for the exit aren’t clear; in a\nstatement, the company only said that Kaul wants to “evaluate and\npursue opportunities” elsewhere. Kaul’s exit comes after a management\nrejig at the company was announced earlier this year.
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\nNonetheless,\nthe move comes at a challenging time for Domino’s. The pizza chain is\nstruggling to boost same-store sales (a measure of sales at stores open\nfor at least a year) amid growing competition from stand-alone\nrestaurants. After the news broke, Jubilant’s stock price plunged by\nover 8% on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Kaul will continue in his current\nrole till March 2017.
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\nMaking pizzas\nmass<\/span>
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\nWhen\nKaul, an Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi alumnus, took over\nJubilant Foodworks, Indians had already been introduced to pizzas and\nburgers, thanks to local chains such as Nirula’s, apart from Domino’s,\nMcDonald’s, and Pizza Hut.
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But they still weren’t spending\nbig on eating out or ordering in. In the early 2000s, Domino’s was\nstill considered an expensive brand, especially among middle-income\nconsumers.
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\nSoon after, Kaul, who attended Xavier School of\nManagement (XLRI) in Jamshedpur in 1989, realised that Domino’s needed\nto change the game by selling inexpensive pizzas.
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\nIn a 2006\ninterview with the DNA newspaper, Kaul said that while Domino’s was\nwell-accepted among the higher-income and upper middle-income groups,\nits penetration was below satisfaction in the middle and lower-middle\nstrata.
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\nThat’s why, between 2006 and 2008, Domino’s introduced\nthe Fun-Meal pizza range at Rs. 45, and later the Rs. 35 Pizza Mania\ncampaign that brought the price of a single serving of pizza (i.e for\none person) down to less than a dollar. These campaigns “dramatically\nexpanded the pizza category in India,” according to Kaul, outdoing\nPizza Hut’s attempts at lowering prices.
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\nIndeed, the rock-bottom\nprices paved the way for Jubilant to expand beyond metro cities to\nsmaller towns like Bhopal, Madurai, and Belgaum. Gradually, it also\nexpanded its India menu, adding cheese-burst pizzas, pastas, and\ndesserts.
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Kaul, who spent a decade working in logistics firm\nTNT Indonesia before coming to Jubilant, also bolstered Domino’s\ndelivery service, promoting its “30 minutes or free” campaign.
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\nThe\nefforts paid off big time. In 2012, the chain hit 500 outlets across\nIndia and has doubled since. Today, Domino’s is much bigger in terms of\nnumber stores than McDonald’s or KFC. Pizza Hut, its biggest direct\ncompetitor, has only 450 outlets in the country.
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\n“While\npizza was already part of the fast-food mix, over the last 10 years or\nso, Domino’s India brought it to the forefront through its systematic\nand aggressive growth. Ensuring a flavour mix attuned to the Indian\npalate, penetrating into locations that were not previously serviced,\nadding dine-in to a brand that essentially had delivery-based DNA, were\nall part of this growth,” said Devangshu Dutta, CEO at consulting firm\nThird Eyesight.<\/span>
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\nKaul also pulled off a successful\nRs329-crore initial public offering (IPO) in 2010 and spearheaded the\nIndia entry of coffee and donut chain Dunkin’ Donuts through franchised\nrights in 2012.
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\nFor the year ended March 31, Jubilant Foodworks\nregistered a turnover of Rs. 2,410 crore (US$362.2 million) and a net\nprofit of Rs. 114.56 crore (US$17 million). That’s 33 times more than\nthe Rs. 73 crore (US$11 million) clocked in 2005 when Kaul took over.
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