Posted by on Apr 16, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

Microsoft took advantage of its Management Summit on Monday to showcase how the cloud can be leveraged to boost virtually any business process – including pizza delivery.  One of those companies was Domino’s Pizza, which recently migrated to Windows Server Hyper-V for better reliability and management of its in-store servers running the Domino’s Pulse point-of-sale (POS) application.

Domino’s is no stranger to information technology – in fact, the company has leveraged technology aggressively to build market share and to boost operational efficiency. Hyper-V currently is deployed in 750 stores and will be rolled out to more than 4,000 in the United States, as well as international locations.

Domino’s also is using System Center to centrally manage over 15,000 servers and devices; Domino’s has cut virtualization-related help desk calls by 99 percent.  But one of the biggest benefits of Hyper-V is its reliability.

“If online ordering goes down, a third of our business evaporates. It’s that simple,” says Lance Shinabarger, vice president, Global Infrastructure, Domino’s Pizza.   “It’s absolutely critical that our store servers remain running and, with Hyper-V, we’ve dramatically reduced store downtime.  From pricing to management, performance and reliability gains, Hyper-V and System Center have been a huge win for Domino’s.”

 

CLO Inside Scoop: While some analysts chalk up Domino’s most recent successes to the popular pan pizza it launched last fall, technology plays at least as great a role in beefing up the chain’s bottom line.  One third of all Domino’s U.S. orders are digital and the company’s sophisticated information technology infrastructure can support the international market as well – that gives the company an edge over competitors – if it can avoid server downtime.  This is one practical example of how the cloud can not only reduce costs and boost operational efficiency, but how when it is strategically deployed, it can give a company a competitive edge.

 

(For more information check out http://www.microsoft.com).