Collective Goal

John Aizlewood, chief development officer at Pizza Hut, shares some of his perspectives on the company

This year is turning into another exciting one at Pizza Hut. We are growing stores at a great rate, both across our Delivery and Express formats, with both new and existing franchise partners.

One of the great aspects of my role is being able to meet, spend time and share know-how with both our new and existing franchisees. I pride myself on the fact I interview, with one of my leadership team colleagues, every new franchisee. It’s a real privilege to be able to meet the future partners of our business at this early stage of our on-boarding process.

Contact

As a business, we spend a large amount of time with our franchisees, whether it be one-to-one, together in the many forums and steering boards we have or out in their businesses. One of the great benefits of these occasions is that I always learn something.

To me, a great franchise system is one where all parties work towards a collective goal and, therefore, can drive a business forward. I feel that this only truly works when both franchisor and franchisee interact well together, which is why this time with our franchisees is very important to me.

We also see growing and developing our franchise partners, as we do our employees, as important. Already this year we have taken them through a great two-day programme of personal development, something I feel is unique to Pizza Hut and was well appreciated by our franchisees.

This is part of the unique Yum! culture. Yum! Is Pizza Hut’s parent company and our special brand of culture is something all our franchisees need to participate in to get the most from being a part of the organisation.

In addition to UK specific efforts, we feel it’s important for our franchisees to feel joined up with the larger Yum! international network. A few months ago we had our worldwide Pizza Hut franchise conference in Las Vegas, where we were able to share best practices from around the world and franchisees had the opportunity to network with their fellow franchise partners from all around the globe.

Reignite

From a new store perspective, I am proud of what our team has done to drive and reignite our Pizza Hut Express business. Our Express format is our quick service model that’s specifically designed for food courts and serving the ‘grab and go’ customer occasion.

As a business, we have put our money where our mouth is in embracing this business opportunity when we opened a new imaged Express store at Westfield Stratford City shopping centre earlier this year. The response has been great and our customers are enjoying a convenient way to get Pizza Hut on the go.

All the dedicated work on our Express business has been done while still ensuring we are growing and developing our Delivery business. Last year we celebrated opening our 100th new Delivery Hut since the start of 2014 and the pace continues today.

This means both new and existing franchisees have been opening new stores across the country. I always enjoy seeing franchisees being successful and growing their businesses and this is especially amplified when the franchisee success started from small beginnings.

Building and growing the Pizza Hut business over the past few years has been a privilege for me and growing it into the future is going to be exciting. This is something I am looking forward to continuing to do with great franchise partners and with the power of Yum!.