Take a pizza chain, add SAP, and bake for ongoing success

When MOD Pizza opened in 2008, customers had a chance to get a taste of something different. MOD, which stands for “Made on Demand,” offers customizable, artisan pizzas, giving customers a choice of more than 40 toppings with various sauces, and customizable salads —delivered superfast.

MOD in America

But pizza (and salads) alone isn’t what separates the Seattle-based chain from the competition and has made it a rapidly growing success. It now has more than 500 system-wide locations throughout the country. 

Two other factors, in addition to its high-quality, personalized products, set MOD Pizza apart from the crowd. The first is a unique pricing strategy. The size of the pizza and not the number of toppings determines the price. So, no matter how many toppings you want, the price is the same for the size you choose. 

The second factor has proven to be an essential ingredient for success: the human factor. Without dedicated, customer-focused employees, even a restaurant known for its cuisine can be difficult to stomach if the service is poor. Happy employees equal happy customers. In 2015, Fortune Magazine named MOD Pizza “one of the 20 Best Workplaces in Retail in the entire US.”

“For MOD Pizza, providing exceptional employee experiences is key to driving workforce engagement and business success,” says Tara Gambill, senior director of enterprise systems for MOD. And to help maintain those exceptional experiences, MOD Pizza added to its business recipe SAP solutions, including SAP SuccessFactors and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

Keeping up with the MOD Squad 

MOD Pizza has more than 10,000 employees, known as the “MOD Squad” (perhaps influenced by the 1968 TV series of the same name – you remember, the one with Linc, Julie, and Pete.) That works out to hundreds of MOD Squad events occurring every day such as hires, transfers, promotions, and separations, generating a lot of data. 

With the chain’s rapid growth, its legacy technology couldn’t keep up. Data was entered manually, which, in some cases, led to inconsistencies and errors and slowed down operations. The company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) and human resources (HR) systems weren’t integrated, creating information silos. Recruiting and onboarding processes were cumbersome. Those issues and more affected the business efficiency and MOD Squad experience.  

Cooking with SAP

MOD Pizza was looking for a solution to efficiently automate, accelerate, and connect the company’s HR and ERP processes and scale. SAP delivered with SAP SuccessFactors (for HR) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition (for ERP). SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) provides the scalable foundation for the company’s digital transformation, and SAP Master Data Integration enables accurate data to be available enterprise wide.

MOD has also employed Qualtrics Experience Management solutions to capture employee feedback and refine recruiting and onboarding processes.

“The ability of SAP SuccessFactors and S/4HANA Cloud, public edition to handle our HR and back-office ERP needs in a scalable and powerful way allows us to leverage an intelligent core and weave all of our end-to-end processes together,” says Tara.

MOD managers can now focus on partnering with their teams instead of being overwhelmed with time-consuming HR and finance processes. “Bringing in this single, cloud-based platform to manage all these activities is a game-changer for MOD,” says Tara.

Out of the oven — automating and integrating

Today, back-of-the-house systems and capabilities – including ordering, inventory, labor management/scheduling, repair, and maintenance costs – are integrated into SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, for seamless operation. 

Hiring and onboarding are frictionless and accelerated to help new employees report to work faster and easier. Up to 1,000 new hires are onboarded each month. 

SAP solutions help MOD Pizza manage 400 event data changes daily. By avoiding manual data entry, the chain saves labor – more than 15 hours a week – and eliminates errors. 

It all adds up to a recipe for ongoing success and happiness – for the MOD Squad, the squad’s pizza home, and MOD customers. For its accomplishments, MOD Pizza has been named a winner in the Experience Wizard category in the 2023 SAP Innovation Awards, which is celebrating its 10^th anniversary.

To learn more about MOD Pizza’s Innovation Awards recipe for success, check out their Innovation Awards pitch deck.