Techno-unification forges crucial link for Yum chains: Yum's varied divisions close gaps with 'standard technologies that support multiple brands,' according to CIO Bellinger

Nation's Restaurant News, August 15, 2005 by Alan J. Liddle

Yum! Brands has endeavored since its 1997 spinoff by then-parent PepsiCo Inc. to consolidate the various point-of-sale systems and back-office applications used by its assorted chains.

Yum's chief information officer, Delaney Bellinger, says that mission only has been intensified by the company's determination to offer the foods of multiple Yum brands under one roof.

"Standardization was obviously a good idea," Bellinger said at the FS/TEC technology confab in 2003. "But with the growth of multibranding, what was initially an efficiency play now has become an imperative."

Yum's chains--A&W All American Food, KFC, Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - each had its own technology platforms when they were acquired by Yum or PepsiCo. Today, Bellinger says, "the key" is "standard technologies that support multiple brands."

Yum, as part of its post-spin-off upgrade and standardization efforts, created a worldwide, wide-area network and decided to "scrap and rebuild [its] above-store [reporting] system," Bellinger recounts. Yum, she says, standardized its e-mail platform and installed an enterprisewide package of human-resources management and finance applications.

Technology initiatives at Pizza Hut, with its phone-dependent carryout and delivery businesses, "are all about telephony" and "wowing the customer," she adds.

There have been "loads of improvements in telephone management [tools] over the past five to seven years," Bellinger remarks, citing applications that permit analysis of call data to see how many and which callers were greeted by busy signals.

Lynne Jacoby of PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York has cited Pizza Hut in discussing the labor savings and enhanced customer service that are possible through the use of centralized order-aggregating call centers. "It's a trend we're seeing more and more," Jacoby says.

Yum has used telephone "customer service centers" overseas for processing takeout and delivery orders of pizza and chicken since the 1980s. As of early last year, the U.S. Yum system had 12 such centers in operation--two run by the company and 10 smaller centers run by franchisees.

Taco Bell's technological hot buttons include focusing on "improving the drive-thru [experience] and speed," Bellinger says, adding, "At KFC order accuracy and speed [of service] are probably the top two" priorities for technology research-and-development efforts.

Bellinger also says Yum is testing self-service ordering kiosks. The company also is looking at Web-based back-office and training applications, she adds.

Pizza Hut's ability to process Internet orders at most of its U.S. restaurants is among recent technological advances at Yum, Bellinger says. Such a system not only enables Pizza Hut to field pickup or delivery orders seamlessly from Internet users but also opens up marketing opportunities, such as the chain's recent promotional tie-in to Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest II online game, which lets players use a built-in keystroke link to Pizza Hut's ordering website.

Bellinger says Yum is developing a phone system supporting Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, to enable phone calls across data networks between restaurants and Yum support centers. That system may be completed as early as mid-2006 and would simplify phone system administration while reducing long-distance charges.

Upgrades to a franchisee-accessible intranet also are in the works, Bellinger says.

Profile

Delaney Bellinger

Title: chief information officer, Yum! Brands Inc.

Reports to: Dave Deno, Yum chief operating and multibranding officer

Prior positions: vice president, restaurant information services planning, 2000-2001; vice president, program management, 1998-2000; director, shared computer services, 1996-1998, PepsiCofTricon Global Restaurants; technical development, account management, sales and consulting, 1983-1996, EDS

Career turning point: "Having a rounded career experience [at EDS] that included operations and finance."

Education: bachelor's degree, civil engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; graduate, EDS Manufacturing Professional Development Program

Hometown: Dallas

Current residence: Houston

Personal facts: married, two children

Favorite foods: A&W cheeseburgers, Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza with hamburger, onions and mushrooms

Hobbies: family activities, including beach outings, skiing

Delaney Bellinger didn't start out as a technologist. She initially got paid to deal with prehistoric remnants.

"My first job out of college was as a drilling engineer for Exxon," Yum's chief information officer says.

In 1996, after some career twists, including time at the pioneering computer services firm EDS, Bellinger joined the technology team at PepsiCo Inc. After it spun off the Yum restaurants, she was named CIO, after leading the company's Year 2000 computer stabilization effort and implementing an e-business strategy.

Consolidating Yum's multitude of varying technology platforms has been Bellinger's primary focus. Fewer platforms will mean fewer problems in the future when Yum is trying to integrate new tools into its technology toolbox, she explains.