INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS DOMINO'S SIZZLES WITH PIZZA TRACKER When it comes to pizza, everyone has an opinion. Some of us think that our current pizza is just fine the way it is. Others have a favorite pizza j oint th at makes it like no on e else. And m any pizza lovers in America agr eed up until recently that Dom ino 's home-delivered pizza was among the worst. Th e home-delivery m arket for pizza cha ins in the United States is approximately $15 billion per year. Domino's, whi ch owns th e largest home-delivery market share of a ny U.s. pizza chain, is find ing ways to innovate by ove rhauling its in-store transact ion processing systems and by providing ot her useful services to customers, such as its Pizza Tracker . And more important , Domino's is trying very hard to overcome its reputation for poor quality by radically improving ingredients and freshness. Critics believe the company significa ntl y improved the quality of its pizza and cus tomer service in 2010. Domino's was founded in 1960 by Tom Monaghan and h is brother James when they purchased a single pizza store in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Th e company slowly began to grow, and by 1978, Domino's had 200 stores. Today, the company is he adqu art ered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and operates almost 9,000 stores located in all 50 U.S. states and across the world in 60 international markets. In 2009, Domino's had $1.5 bill ion in sales an d ea rne d $80 million in profit. Domino's is part of a heate d b attle among promi- n ent pizza chains, including Pizza Hut , Pap a John's , and Little Caesar. Pizza Hut is th e only chai n larger than Domino's in the U.S., but each of the four h as significant market share. Domino's also compe tes with local pizza stores throughout the U.S. To gain a competitive adv antage Domino's needs to deliver excell ent customer service, and most imp ort antl y, good pizza. But it also b en efits from highly ef fective information syst ems. Domi no's proprietary point-of-sale syst em, Pulse, is an importa nt as set in mainta ining consistent and efficient manageme nt functions in each of its re stau- r ant s. A po int-of-sale system capt ure s purchase and payment data at a physical location where goods or services are bought and sold using computers, auto- mat ed cash registers, scann ers, or other digital devices. In 2003, Domino's impl emented Pulse in a large portion of its stores, and those stores r eported improved custo me r service, r edu ced mistakes, and sho rter tra ining times. Since th en , Pulse has become a staple of all Domino's franchises. Some of the func- tions Puls e p erf orms at Domino 's fran chises are tak- ing and customizing orders using a touch-screen int e rf ace, m aintaining sales fi gures, and compiling custo me r infor mation. Domino's prefers not to disclose the specific dollar amounts that it has saved from Pulse, but it's clear from industry an al yst s th at the te chn ology is working to cut costs and increase custo mer satisfaction. More recentl y, Domino's released a new hardware and software platform called Pulse Evolution , which is now in use in a majority of Domino's more th an 5,000 U.S. bran ches. Pulse Evolution improves on the older te chn ology in several ways. First, the older software used a 'thick-client' model, which required all ma chines using the soft ware to be fully equipped personal computers runn ing Windows. Pulse Evolution, on the othe r h and , uses 'thin-client' archi- t ecture in which networked workstations with little indep e nd ent processing power collect data and send th em over the Int ern et to powerful Leno vo PCs for processing. Th ese workstations lack hard drives, fans, and other moving parts, making th em les s expensive and easier to maintain . Also , Puls e Evolution is easier to update and more se cure, since there's only one ma chine in the store which needs to be upd at ed . Along with Pulse Evolution, Domino's rolled out its state-of-the-art online ordering syst em, which includes Pizza Tracker . Th e syste m allows custome rs to watch a simulated photogr aphi c version of their pizza as th ey customize its size, sauces, and t oppings. Th e im age cha nges with each change a customer makes. Th en , once custo mers place an or der , th ey are able to view its progress online with Pizza Tracker. Pizza Tracker displays a horizontal bar that tracks an order's progress graphically. As a Domino's store completes each step of th e order fulfillme nt process, a section of the bar be comes red. Even custo me rs that place th eir ord ers via tel eph one can monitor their progress on the Web using Pizza Tracker at stores using Pulse Evolution . In 2010, Domino's introdu ced an online polling system to continuously upload inf ormation from local stores. As with most in stances of organizational change of this magnitud e, Domino's experienced some resis- tance. Domino's originally wanted its franchises to