Domino's Pizza Management Issues

This assignment examines the management problems within Australian Domino's Pizza franchises. It highlights issues such as worker underpayment, exploitation of migrant labour, financial pressures on franchisees, and a dictatorial management style by Domino's headquarters. The analysis suggests solutions including improved leadership skills, stricter wage audit policies, and enhanced monitoring of payroll discrepancies.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
Management Principles
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Author Note

1MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
The essay draft deals with the analysis of the Australian Domino’s company and its
management issues. The aim is to analyse the issues and propose the solutions for the
management problems.
Domino’s Pizza Inc is the American based chain of restaurants. The headquarters, of the
company is at Michigan, United States. In March 2010, J. Patrick Doyle undertook the
management of Domino’s. Currently the company has its branches in more than 70 countries.
The Australian Domino’s Pizza enterprises currently own and franchise the branches of chain in
Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and Monaco (Reid and Borchers 2016). There are several
management issues in the company currently identified from the literature.
The Domino’s Pizza chain in Australia has squeezed its franchisees. It is franchisees have
exploited labour who are migrant from other countries. There are many underpaid workers in its
franchisees while the investors have earned millions (Sivaraman and Turner 2016).
It was observed in the Australia’s biggest Pizza chain, that there was a dictatorial system
in the Domino’s. It was complained by number of current and former franchisees that the
Domino’s demanded them for more finance. Domino’s unfairly push some franchisees out of the
system while specially treating other multi-franchisees by offering them stores at below market
rate. Sometimes the franchisees were given to people who do not have enough experience and
run at a loss (Ferguson 2017).
A rampant underpayment of the workers has been highlighted in the recent new article
based on Sydney. Domino’s was under monitoring since 2015 and it was found that many
franchisees were stressed. In recent pay roll audit in 2016, it was found that staffs were
underpaid by $80000. There was severe underpayment at the convenience store giant 7-eleven in

2MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
2015. Further, breaches in the employment obligations were also observed in terms of overtime
payment. In tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, some franchises were bleeding money. It
was found that the franchisees were making money by cutting cost. These franchisees were
benefitted from head office. This incident suggests that there is need of more laws to make
franchisers more accountable. It appeared that it was difficult for the franchisee to survive
without underpayment (Kariyawasam and Samarkovski 2012).
According to Ferguson (2017), exploitation of the workers have been common in the
biggest franchisee. The strategy was to decrease the labour costs below 27 per cent of sales. In
order to implement this strategy, the store maggers have to trim the work hours of the staff to
reduce the pay accordingly. It means for every cheaper pizza offered to the customer, the
workers and the franchises have to scratch a living out of the nation’s appetite.
It can be concluded that there are several management issues in Domino’s in the
Australian franchises. These problems can be overcome by the change in the leadership skills.
Strengthening the wage audit policy will help overcome the discrepancies. There is a need of
monitoring the discrepancies in the pay roll more stringently.

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References
DOMINO’S, A.M., 2000. Domino’s Pizza. NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS, 34(19), p.120.
Ferguson, A. 2017. The Domino's Effect. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 September
2017, from http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2017/the-dominos-effect/
Kariyawasam, K. and Samarkovski, L., 2012. Legal Issues in Franchising in Australia: Is the
Current Regulatory Environment for the Franchise Sectoradequate. Macquarie J. Bus.
L., 9, p.179.
Reid, B. and Borchers, A., 2016. Food Fight: Law and Public Relations in Pizza Wars. Journal
of Critical Incidents, 9, p.73.
Sivaraman, G. and Turner, P., 2016. The 7-Eleven wages scandal: The need for law
reform. Precedent (Sydney, NSW), (135), p.53.