Domino's opens new innovation hub
The pizza chain unveiled a new international innovation lab endorsed by the Queensland Premier, the Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk and launched by The Honourable Leeanne Enoch, Minister for Innovation and Science.
Set to attract a dynamic range of start-ups, entrepreneurs and the next generation of thinkers, the open plan space will spearhead a new model of innovation that embraces and captures emerging technology and innovation created by both Domino’s employees, as well as the outside community.
Domino’s Group CEO and Managing Director Don Meij said that innovation was engrained in the Company’s DNA and played a big role in the future strategic direction of the business.
“This is a dedicated innovation space set to encourage out-of-the-box thinking both internally to benefit Domino’s customers and externally supporting start-ups, entrepreneurs and disruptive thinkers," Meij said.
"Innovations driven from the DLAB will focus on adding value to the customer and the overall store experience and will allow us to remain competitive on a global scale. It really is all about opening the door to what is possible.”
Meij said the space will focus on connecting like-minded people, building, delivering, testing and taking learnings and applying them quickly to the business.
“We have already partnered with a number of start-ups and businesses that have disruptive ideas in the retail and QSR space and are working at the viability of applying those ideas to the business and investing in those start-ups. Just as important is our commitment to fostering and developing internal ideas, with Domino’s project teams already transforming ideas into reality in in the DLAB space.”
With a Head Innovator, Researcher and other specialised experts already firing up the innovation oven in the space, Meij said that a number of internal projects and pretotypes (or as referred to by some, minimum viable products), were already well under way.
“We have been running internal creative hackathons and innovation sessions for some time but we now have a creative space designed to solve business problems and disrupt and revolutionise the industry," Meij said.
According to Domino's, the DLAB will also house a number of pretotypes at any given time.
“We want to encourage team members to put their ideas out there and we will test and put into practice ones we think could inspire great change. It’s all about being disruptive, agile, adaptive, fast thinking and responsive to the changing environment around us and having a space dedicated to proving that things will and won’t work on a macro level," Meij said.
“We need to be able to cultivate innovation right here in Australia so that we can spark change and push out of our comfort zones- that’s what we intend to deliver out of the DLAB and we can’t wait to see what ideas are cooked up.”
The interactive DLAB space offers a number of collaboration spaces and meeting rooms, as well as four key break out areas including a backyard tool shed, gaming, garden terrace and library inspired area all designed to encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
