June 25, 2025 • 46 mins
Jack in the Box CTO Doug Cook and WWT Chief Digital Advisor Charlie Lawhorn detail how a multi-year modernization sprint paved the way for advancements in AI — and what every business can learn from the fast-food chain's journey. Doug and Charlie offer a candid conversation that delivers a playbook for prioritizing AI use cases, funding innovation in capital-constrained environments and rolling out AI with minimal disruption.
For more about this week's guests:
Doug Cook joined Jack in the Box as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer in October of 2021. Cook brings more than 20 years of industry experience leading guest and employee-facing platforms to Jack in the Box. Cook most recently served as interim CTO of Jack in the Box, effectively leading the technology team and strategy during his interim period. Prior to joining Jack in the Box, Cook served as Chief Information Officer at Pizza Hut. Before Pizza Hut, Cook spent two decades with Sonic applying leading-edge technologies and analytics to grow the company's innovation and market position.
Doug's top pick: Jack in the Box Case Study
Charlie Lawhorn is an experienced transformation leader with a career dedicated to designing and executing complex programs that help organizations navigate digital change. He specializes in aligning process design with modern digital technologies to enhance enterprise relevance and performance in a data-driven marketplace. Charlie leads teams that prioritize business outcomes, working closely with stakeholders to identify opportunities, apply the right processes and technologies and deliver measurable business value.
Charlie's top pick: Modernizing the Point of Sale at Jack in the Box to Drive Efficiency, Insights and Growth
The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.
Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground.
The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others.
Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC), this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From Worldwide Technology.
This is the AI Proving Groundpodcast.
Today, jack in the Box, chiefTechnology Officer Doug Cook and
WWT Chief Digital Advisor,charlie Lawhorn, give us a peek
inside the QuickServeRestaurant's AI transformation
journey, a multi-year effortthat serves as a playbook for
business leaders across allindustries for prioritizing AI
(00:22):
use cases and aligning teams andleadership to make it work.
Thank you.
Check on what it really takesto bring AI to the business with
minimal disruption, so, as AIbarrels toward your business,
(00:51):
pay attention to how Doug andCharlie talk about stabilizing
the basics before chasing thebuzz.
Line up every stakeholder withrelentless, transparent
communication and demand quick,measurable wins from each pilot
before scaling it company-wide.
This is the AI Proving Groundpodcast everything AI all in one
place.
Let's dive in.
Hey, doug, thanks for joiningtoday.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, good to see you , Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Charlie, good to see you, as always.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thanks, brian, great to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well, I've been looking forward to this episode
for quite some time.
I saw the two of you actuallyspeak together in a panel out in
Monterey, california I think itwas.
I want to say 2021 or 2022.
And, doug, you said somethingsuper insightful that I just
want to repeat back because Iwanted to kind of frame our
conversation and kick off wherewe're at.
You were talking about the needto stabilize infrastructure
(01:46):
before you can modernizeinfrastructure in order to
innovate, and your quote was myboard was wanting to start with
the sexy things like the storeof the future, but I had to fix
the core first.
If our restaurants can't takeor make or deliver an order, it
doesn't matter what else we do.
I wonder if you could take thatquote and this was before
generative AI even popped uponto the scene apply it to where
(02:07):
we're at today.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, thanks for that question, Brian.
Yeah, I remember very vividlysitting there on stage in
Monterey with Charlie talkingabout our business, and it's
good to be with you again,Charlie, as well.
So, yeah, I'm excited aboutwhere we're at today because
we're squarely in the middle ofthat modernization phase, but we
did have to spend back in 2021,when I joined the Jack in the
(02:32):
Box family, some 18 months,brian and Charlie, focusing on
stabilizing the systems.
I talked to our team and ourfranchisees about this.
Every time we get together, itdoesn't matter what's at the top
of that hype cycle, whetherit's a Gen AI or you remember
those days where it was big dataor anything else that's going
(02:55):
on that might be innovative.
If we can't accept, anoff-premise order or system is
unstable and unreliable and notworking for our business.
So I talked to our team and ourfranchisees about uninterrupted
operations, brian, and that'sreally the heart of the matter
(03:16):
is our technology at Jack in theBox and Del Taco should never
get in the way of running thebusiness each and every day, and
once we have that stability inplace, we know that and we talk
a lot about what we're capableof in the future, how we want to
be competitive, how we want toleapfrog our competition with
(03:37):
our technology.
But it's required us to puttogether a roadmap of
modernization to bring ourtechnology from the outdated
legacy we call it the vintagestate that it's in today Vintage
being that nice word for legacyBringing it up to the modern
kind of 2020 timeframe, where wethen can position the
(03:59):
technology to innovate andoptimize and really drive the
business going forward.
So that's what I meant by that,because when I joined the
business early on, thefranchisees were talking to me
about technology and again, it'sinhibiting our ability to move
forward.
They would ask me questionslike why can't we have tech like
this other quick servicerestaurant has?
(04:21):
And why is ours always breakingdown?
And largely because it wasn'tstable, it was in the way, the
way of the business, we weren'tmaking the investments that we
needed to make, uh, to reallykeep up and stay up, and so, as
a result, that was my focus andreally is my focus each and
every day is ensuring thetechnology is not interrupting
(04:42):
uh, you know the the transactionbetween us and our guests.
So does that resonate with you,charlie?
Does that make sense of whatyou see as you help so many
other companies, including Jackin the Box.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
It does, and you know , doug, you also, when we first
had that discussion, you wereright in the middle of you know,
the integration I'll call it ofJack and Del Taco and kind of
thinking through that.
So you kind of had a core stackwith Jack, a core stack with Del
, had to figure out how do youkind of combine those and then
both do that at the same time asmodernize.
(05:17):
And I know that's been amulti-year journey for you and
your teams and leadership reallythinking through that, you and
your teams and leadership reallythinking through that.
And I remember one of the otherparts that I found just super
interesting was, you know,balancing all of those technical
duties and leadership dutieswith you know communicating
effectively with your franchiseecommunity and making sure that
(05:40):
you know each one of yourfranchisee team members were
aligned and on board.
And you had a lot of differentteams that had different
opinions and perspectives.
So you kind of jumped into themiddle of a melting pot of all
types of change and challengeand trying to get everybody
aligned on a common path.
(06:01):
I think that's one of thethings that really astounded me
was not just the technicalchallenges but the business
challenges of building trust andgetting the franchisees to feel
like their investments weremeaningful towards the future of
your tech stack.
So to me, it wasn't just thetech, it was that aligned with
the business perspective as well.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, yeah, for me, you're right.
The technical challenges were,and still are, vast.
They're never ending in so manyways, because I'm learning
something new about ourarchitecture today that I didn't
know several years ago, andit's evolving our roadmap and
our plan and how we see targetstate.
(06:45):
But I've had the opportunity towork with franchisees across
three different brands andbuilding that connection that
you're talking about, thattrusted connection, where I'm
here not to sling aroundtechnology, I'm here to grow
(07:12):
their business and grow ourcollective business and achieve
the outcomes that really ourboard and our executive team we
set out to accomplish.
And so that's really meaningfulto me and one way to do that,
given that we're 95% franchiseowned, it's really important to
me that I have a strong, trustedrelationship with the
franchisees.
Really important to me that Ihave a strong, trusted
relationship with thefranchisees.
It's not always telling themwhat they want to hear.
It's really.
This is where we're at.
We're not as mature as we wantto be and I need your investment
(07:35):
, I need your support, I needyour guidance to help us evolve,
build and evolve a roadmap thatultimately again achieves all
of our goals and objectives.
So it's really critical.
It's at the heart of my jobevery single day and I'd argue
that really probably any highlyfranchised quick service
(07:55):
restaurant brand technologyleader probably feels the same
way I do and works at it thesame way I do as well.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think the reason I remember that part of the topic
so much is in this world of AI.
With AI everywhere impacting alldifferent parts of businesses,
I actually see more and morecompanies having a similar
challenge, not because they havethe franchisees, but AI is a
new technology that wasn't inmany cases, budgeted for, and so
(08:24):
people are having to go seekout funding and and to do that
they're having to actually lobbytheir, their, their business
stakeholders and their variousteams, and it just it constantly
makes me think of you having tohaving to make sure that you
had that alignment with all ofyour franchise franchisees,
because you know, ai didn't justthe board, doesn't just give
you another $50 million to goinvest in AI.
(08:44):
You have to find that 50 millionand re-slice the pie, or 10
million or 2 million or whateverthat is.
You have to re-slice the pieand to do that you have to get a
tremendous amount ofstakeholders on board to go both
investigate these technologiesor even deploy these
technologies.
So again, I use that examplefrom that discussion you and I
had so many times of like.
(09:05):
It's almost like a franchisee'smodel, and as soon as I say
that people are like, that makessense.
So believe it or not, doug,whether they're actually in a
franchisee model or not, moreand more companies are having to
solicit all of those differentlines of business, all of those
different groups, to getalignment around these new
technologies that they didn'thave to do a couple of years ago
and in the same way thatthey're doing now.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Charlie, that's a great point.
The board doesn't always justgive you $20, $50 million to go
explore or really kind ofinnovate with AI.
So not only do you have to findthe budget, you also have to
find use cases.
Doug, I'm hoping you can walkus through kind of innovate with
AI.
So not only do you have to findthe budget, you also have to
find use cases.
Doug, I'm hoping you can walkus through kind of how that
prioritization andidentification process went.
I know you know earlier thisyear at the Good Good Summit
which, by the way, fantasticevent that Jack in the Box you
(09:58):
know throws not only supporting,you know, restaurants, but
really kind of driving strategicdirection but you teased a
couple of AI use cases therethat you're prioritizing.
So walk me through that processwho you got to the table and so
forth.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, great question, brian, and I appreciate WWT's
participation in that Good GoodSummit.
It's a great partnership wehave together.
Yeah, so the prioritizationquestion you asked, and then the
use case identification we dothat largely through our tech
committees and our leadershipadvisory council, which is made
(10:33):
up of 12 franchisees Most ofthem are our most influential
franchisees who help us thinkthrough and business case out
these use cases that we want toexplore.
As you can imagine and, charlie, I'm sure you've seen this
before yourself there's no endto the number of ideas that our
teams have.
(10:54):
We talk about two problems thatwe have in our business and I
gather, just being around QSRquick service restaurants here,
as long as I have, these are thesame problems everybody faces.
We have a speed problem and wehave an accuracy problem, and so
we sort of look at all of oursolutions and ideas in the
(11:14):
context and through the lens ofhow can we be faster, because
after all, we are a quickservice restaurant, charlie.
And then accuracy, as Imentioned, nobody wants to go
through a drive-through and getthe food.
We've all been there, we gethome and then it's not made the
way you want it to be made.
So that's really kind of ourprioritization filter in terms
(11:39):
of sort of like our first pass,like our first pass, we also
have five business outcomes thatwe're all aligned around that
center on sales and margin andunit growth and customer guess
metrics.
So all those come into play.
We do that through ourleadership advisory council.
(12:00):
Now you mentioned the fundingpart.
Just between us here I know alot of our listeners are
probably going to understandwhat I'm saying here Our
franchisees it's difficult, it'schallenging, charlie, to get
additional capital from them.
Healthy tension between whatthe franchisor should fund and
(12:26):
what the franchisee shouldparticipate in funding.
So those conversations continue, especially as our funding
apparatuses started off with nooff-premise ordering, no AI,
none of this new technology inmind.
It was really just everythinggoing on inside the four walls
of a restaurant and that's kindof how our funding structures
have worked for so long.
(12:46):
And so we're challenging that,we're evolving that with our
franchisees and it doesn't feelvery good from their point of
view.
We talk about needing someadditional investment to bring
these technologies to bear.
So it's a healthy tension fieldconversation.
But that's how we go about that.
Do you think that's the rightapproach based on what you've
(13:07):
seen or what do you think?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
It sounds similar to so many other customers and so
many other businesses.
You know, doug, the interestingthing is when new technologies
pop up something like AI and thefunding isn't there.
What we see across the boardwhether you're in financials,
healthcare, entertainment,retail, the QSR, like yourselves
so many companies don't reallyhave a well-established model
(13:36):
around investigation of newtechnologies or really
understanding like innovativenew technologies.
So many companies kind of haveto scrape together, and what we
find, Doug, is differentbusiness lines, marketing IT
sales.
They all go test and deployindividual solutions.
(13:58):
Typically, it runs in the cloudor SaaS, and so that starts to
drive up some OPEX because it'seasy.
It's easy to quickly do thatand kind of test and tinker with
these technologies inlightweight ways.
What we're seeing, though, is,though, as they try and bring
those technologies in-house atscale, that conversion from that
simple test, that littleinnovative thing that they
(14:19):
wanted to do now, into anoperational budget, is where a
lot of companies are strugglingtoday.
It's, you know, I can find 50bucks to go run a test, or
50,000 to go deploy a pilot.
How do I get that intoproduction and how do we fund
that?
And that's not just you, doug,with a franchisee community.
It's all of these, all of thecustomers that we're working
(14:42):
with right now.
It's a real challenge for them,because I can't cut what I
needed yesterday to add what Ineed tomorrow.
So how do I do both?
And so we spend a lot of timeswith executives like you, doug,
really thinking through thereshuffling of the deck and
rethinking prioritization.
Rethinking prioritizationbecause that's what really
(15:07):
happens is you have to basicallystack rank your priorities and
then restack rank them on acontinual basis around these new
technologies, and it just makesit tough.
It's a stressful time forexecutives like you and
technology leadership, where thebusiness starts demanding all
of these new things.
They want to test and trial andplay with all these new
technologies.
You want to help do it in asafe and smart and scalable and
(15:29):
secure way.
It's tough to balance all ofthose things.
So I wish I could tell you thatthere's a magic bullet or
there's a simple nine by ninegrid that solves it for
everybody, but there's not.
It's really around executivealignment and prioritization of
business goals.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I think the business goals andoutcomes come first.
We struggle in the same waythat you just described.
We don't know everything.
We want to know.
These are largely bets andexperiments for us and everybody
else.
And, to your point, you know we,we struggle, we can.
We can stand up a pilot prettyquickly.
(16:09):
Uh, we've got some some goodbeginning AI options on voice.
You know voice AI in thedrive-through.
Can we use a computer to takean order?
Can we use Jack's voice?
Can we use some of ourpersonalities that are closely
identified with the brand?
Uh, to to engage our guestswhile our crew inside does the
productivity work they need todo on making food and getting it
(16:32):
ready.
But, to your point, scaling itis one of the biggest challenges
we face as well, not onlyfinancially, but operationally
and technically right.
We don't know all the answersto all the questions, so in so
many ways, we do go into thattest and learn mentality as well
.
I'm interested to hear yourperspective.
As you know so well thismodernization roadmap and plan
(16:55):
that we have in place we'retrying to address.
I'm trying to keep the teamsfocused.
A large percentage of ourbudget and our time is on
getting out of that legacythinking and environment with
technology.
It's holding us back and reallymodernizing that tech, at the
same time trying to keep an eyeon the innovative tech so we
don't get farther behind.
(17:15):
I'm curious.
We've talked a lot about thesetypes of things.
Just what's some wisdom therethat you've learned?
Talking, working with othercompanies?
What's the right balance?
How do I balance that?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Wow Gosh, I was expecting easy questions from
you, doug, Come on.
But no, seriously, it's, it's,it is.
It's a massive challenge.
The, the, the, the constantrebalancing of priorities and
you know, and it plays into alot of what type of money do we
have to spend also comes intoplay.
(17:49):
Is it OpEx?
Is it CapEx?
How do we want to deal withthis?
Those are challenges that we'reseeing on a regular basis.
We're watching pretty muchevery customer I work with is
overburdened from an OpExperspective, and how can we
convert those expenses back tomore capitalized assets?
That's a very, very, verycommon discussion and it drives
(18:11):
different behaviors right.
We watched doug.
So many people shift to a cloudfirst, or a cloud smart strategy
, yeah, and now we're watchingthem say, wait a minute.
Have we gone too far that way?
Should we bring some of thesetechnologies back in-house?
Or how do we do that?
Like, you have so manyrestaurants where you have to
have edge components for thesetechnologies.
(18:32):
And like, what can we put inthe cloud?
What can we put in the core?
What can we do at the edge?
You give great examples of likeI would love to order some
monster tacos from Jack.
I think that would be awesomefrom an experience perspective,
but you have to think aboutbalancing that all the way out
to like the tech in the store todeliver that experience with
ultra low latency and theintegration of that, like you
(18:56):
said, back into point of sale.
That allows for a veryfrictionless experience.
And you still have to havehumans moderating some of those
transactions in the beginning,especially to make sure that the
people are watching theseorders.
The quality is there.
You mentioned it.
Right.
It's the perfect combination ofyou want quality and speed, and
(19:16):
one without the other is afailure in either direction.
You could give me the best mealever, but if it takes an hour,
that doesn't help me.
That doesn't help me.
Yeah, you could give me ahorrible meal in a second, and
that doesn't help me either.
So I think you, like so manyothers, are going through this
education process andre-education with your
(19:38):
executives Because, as you know,doug, ai has become a
board-level discussion forpretty much everybody across all
the threads and I think theconstant reshuffling, getting
executives to understand howmuch this technology can impact
your employee or your guestexperiences, and helping them
understand how to do thesethings safely and smartly, the
(20:01):
amount of time that technologyteams are having to educate
their business counterparts istremendous and executives are
having to educate their business.
You know, counterparts istremendous and executives are
having to learn more and morethings about technology than
they've ever had to do before.
Right, they, they went tobusiness school to run a
business.
They they didn't all go totechnology school to understand
the technology of running abusiness, but but now those
(20:24):
things are emerging, they'rebecoming the same.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Right, yeah, well, that's great.
That's great.
I mean my job.
Every day, I feel like Charlie.
90% of my job is influencingand bringing people along and
educating, informing.
Now I've learned something new.
Now I've got to reshape whatI've already shared in the past
and sharing this overallnarrative and transformation
roadmap when I don't have allthe answers vulnerably and
(20:50):
honestly, I don't have all theanswers, but I'm looked to have
all those answers.
So it's exciting and thrillingand we're trying to embrace AI
in the midst of an environmentthat is old and outdated and I'm
sure not to feel sorry formyself, but I'm sure many, many
(21:11):
organizations out there arecaught and have been caught
between how do I keep moving thebusiness forward and keep pace
with the speed of the technologyand of how things?
You got to pivot in a momentthese days, you got to blunch
your competition.
You got to deal with thosethings that you know you gotta.
You gotta pivot in a momentthese days, yeah, you gotta.
You gotta blunch yourcompetition.
You gotta deal with thosethings that are coming at you
(21:31):
all the time.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
And it's.
It's also tough because youtalk about fundamentals and the
foundational aspects of thesetechnologies.
You've got to go back andrevisit your data platforms,
your data strategy.
What your data strategy and thearchitecture around your data
was of two years ago may not bewhat's needed to make some of
these new technologies performthe way you would like to, and
(21:53):
so you're constantly having toretouch work that you think you
just finished a massive dataproject and then you go wait a
minute, that was kind of pre-AI.
Now that I've got AI in themiddle of all of this, do I have
it set up the right way?
Is it going to drive the rightresults for some of these AI
solutions?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, yeah, we've touched every part of our
technology ecosystem.
We've had to pull out andreplace and modernize, do and
redo every part of ourtechnology, from ERP systems to
PLS platforms, to back a housesystems in the restaurant, to
our digital tech stack and data.
(22:31):
It's always under constructionand as part of that, you're
trying to explain to folks whodon't understand all the facets
of that why we're constantlyunder construction and why we
ongoing stream of investment andfunding, because if we don't do
it, obviously our competitionis going to do it, and so, um,
(22:53):
it's.
It may be one of the morecomplicated times ever for, for,
for people like yourself andmyself, and you know folks that
lead technology, uh, you know,uh, departments and businesses,
because it's, uh, the ideas.
It's really all about howfaster technology can respond to
those new ideas and pivot.
(23:14):
So again, I'm excited, I'mthrilled about it, but, man, it
keeps me up at night, everynight, it seems like yeah,
charlie.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I mean.
So much is up in the air,whether it's you're on the right
path for a use case, or you'retalking about funding or
prioritization.
The list goes on and on.
Given all that uncertainty,charlie, are there any like
signals or momentum points thatthat we should be looking out
for to know or feel confidentthat we're on the right path
towards accelerating and gettingcloser to that AI flywheel?
Speaker 3 (23:53):
It goes back to the basics, brian, of just start
small Test pilot play withtechnologies but get one or two
right, get some wins, get somesuccesses around those pilots,
those new technologies, newinnovations, because you got to
bring the rest of the business,the stakeholders, along for the
(24:14):
ride.
So you've got to show small butquick wins frequently to drive
that continual mindset andinvestment in these technologies
.
I think that's the key.
What I've noticed, brian andDoug please I want your thoughts
on this too the days of theyear-long project, before you
(24:35):
start to see a return, peopleused to talk about oh, can I get
a return in the first year?
It's changing the pace offunding, the pace of
expectations around value.
It's a quarterly of funding,the pace of expectations around
value.
It's a quarterly, it's, it's,it's what can I see this month
or this quarter to to impactboth, you know, my guests, my
employees, but possibly even mystock, and so we're seeing a lot
(24:58):
more.
You know, what can we do in sixweeks or eight weeks so that I
can start to see a result bythat 10th or 12th week?
Not, let's do a 25 week or,heck, a 52 week project.
It's, it's break it up intosmaller, more digestible chunks.
That allows me to show valuefaster.
And, doug, my guess is you're?
(25:18):
You're in a similar, a similarchallenge.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, a hundred percent, charlie.
Yeah, the days are over.
Use your words that that youcan just go off in a corner, and
we can't do it in IT alone.
You said that.
I think that might be theharder part of all of this is,
everybody has to come along onthe journey.
Everybody has to be at thetable that are helping our
(25:44):
organizations.
We have to be bringing thosepeople to the table.
We have to have them there.
I've got so many examples whereIT has run off and done what is
the right thing and had thewrong people, or not the right
people at the table, and thenit's a failure.
It's always a failure and it'sbeen IT-led as opposed to
(26:07):
business led.
So, to your point, the smallPOCs and the small pilots that
show proof of value.
And then I have learned havingreally strong architects and
tech leads on the team that arehelping us think about if this
wins, if this bet pays off, howare we going to scale this Right
?
How is the technology going toevolve so we can quickly go from
(26:30):
zero to 60?
Because, charlie, I'm guessingthat you see the same thing, but
in our world it's that worked.
Go faster, roll it all the wayout or roll to lots of markets.
And oftentimes we get trippedup there because we maybe took
some shortcuts early on, even inthe pilot of the POC.
We get tripped up there becausewe maybe took some shortcuts
early on, even in the pilot ofthe POC.
(26:50):
So it's, it's really that it'slike a razor's edge.
It's really a tight ropebetween doing that pilot,
quickly showing value, and thenbeing able to, to, to, to, to
scale it, uh, you know, quickly,so uh, but you said it, that's,
that's right, it's, it's, it'sthe basics of how you uh,
(27:10):
quickly show value and then, ifyou need to pivot, because it's
not working.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
You go on to the next idea and, doug, I also think on
the back end of that well, noton the back end, but on top of
all of that communication reallygood project management,
(27:40):
no-transcript, and so just thesemore complex engagements with
all of these stakeholders, allof these different people that
need to be part of the processjust a doubling down on really
good project management has beenimportant as well.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah it has.
We just did a project and we'regetting closer to the end of it
, which you might call one ofthe biggest projects that Jack
in the Box has ever taken on.
And for those out there thathave done big ERP projects, or,
in our case, an ERP at therestaurant which is replacing
our point of sale system, thisis the heart of a restaurant.
(28:17):
Everything runs through there.
Without that functioningproperly, you have no business.
We've done a bunch of worktogether on that WWT and Jack in
the Box.
We've done a bunch of worktogether on that WWT and Jack in
the Box and we've had atremendous project and program
management, largely from WWThelping to shepherd this thing
through.
And it shows the value.
(28:39):
As I sit back and watch overwhat really is a short time
horizon and now 12 months, we'verolled out hundreds, now
thousands, of locations with anew POS system and I sleep
pretty good at night.
We feel really good about thisprogram because it's on cruise
(29:00):
control Now.
There's a lot of work going on.
There's installations, there'sprocurement of hardware, there's
software configuration.
But, like you said, one of themost critical roles, maybe the
most important role, is thatquarterback, that program
project manager and all of usthat have been in IT know yeah,
project manager, project manager.
But when you're taking on aninitiative that's transformative
(29:24):
in nature, like what we'redoing together, that role is, I
mean, just paramount.
And getting that right like wehave it just heightens, it
increases your chances andprobability of success, which
I'm happy about for sure,because I don't get that right,
franchisees are calling me everyminute of the day and that's
(29:45):
just, that's no good, and ourbusiness is in a rough spot too.
So, whether it's an AI projector a modernization project or
anything of scale, you said it100% program project management,
somebody that can communicateeffectively, absolutely critical
.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I love the cruise control.
I'll go ahead and knock on woodfor you right now with that
statement, but I am interestedin the franchisee angle because
that seems like such a tall task, a boulder up a hill in terms
of.
(30:22):
You know, it's one thing toprove out an AI solution or
anything for that matter, butyou know how do you start to
scale it across a franchiseecommunity that might be
fragmented or might be justboots on the ground trying to
make things run day to day Doug.
How do you go about doing that,knowing that that's a pretty
applicable situation for manyother industries that might be
tuning in today?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, well, I wish I had the perfect algorithm for
how to do that.
We've been successful inseveral initiatives here at Jack
and the Box, one that I justmentioned here that I mean it
affects every single restaurantand every single franchisee and
every single employee in ourworkforce.
I think number one is wealready mentioned it, brian the
(31:00):
program and project managementand really the governance
structures.
That word governance oftentimesgets a bad rap governance we're
going to govern something butat the end of the day, without a
framework and awell-thought-out approach, which
we did.
And I'll give our teams credit,and I'll say to those that are
listening here don'tunderestimate that Our teams
(31:22):
early on came to me, brian andCharlie knows this, and our WWT
friends know this as well.
Hey, you know, our three guyscan do this.
Let us at it.
Coach, you know, um, and Iappreciate the zeal and I
appreciate the desire to saythat we can run a program of
this size, but, um, they reallydidn't know what we were, what
we're getting into here.
We really needed a level ofsophistication and maturity, uh,
(31:46):
to take on this initiative,much less anything of this size.
And then, along the way, weabsolutely needed a constant
communication and interactionmechanism with our franchisees.
Charlie can attest to this andagain, the teams can.
(32:07):
This thing didn't get off to themost rosy start, like most
projects, don't?
You've got to work throughthose hard early on challenges,
brian and Charlie.
You know this, charlie, thatestablishes trust, establishes
credibility, establishesexcellence and quality.
And listen, I'm coming in withnew technology, but we're not
(32:31):
going to disrupt your business.
We're not going to put you in aposition where your employees
can't take care of the guest oryou're losing money.
We had to overcome thattogether as a team and there
really isn't any recipe that Ican think of right now.
That's just like a surefirething for that.
For me personally, it's reallygathering around me and our team
trusted senior level thinkersand thought leadership and
(32:58):
partnership people that are allin kind of people and I'm
thinking of those people rightnow, charlie, that you know of
that said hey, this is going tobe tough, this is not going to
be easy, we all know it.
But we're here for said hey,this is going to be tough, this
is not going to be easy, we allknow it.
But we're here for the longhaul and we're going to battle
through together to make thissuccessful, and that's why I say
the cruise control now, brian,because nothing's on cruise
(33:20):
control.
There's always choppy air ahead, so to speak.
But when you hit that choppyair at thousands of locations in
, it's because you work throughthat ascent to get to cruise
control way back at 10 and 50and 100 restaurants in our case.
For this project and, I think,an AI project anything of scale
(33:42):
goes through that life cycle andeverybody needs to be ready for
it.
I was ready for it but wasn'tready for it.
I've been through several ofthese myself, but you got to
have an army, a village ofpeople that you trust in your
inner circle, that are workingon your behalf and have the
experiences and the reps ofdoing this and have resilience.
(34:03):
They're going to perseverethrough challenges, which we all
did, and our franchisees werequestionable about this early on
.
Do you have what you need done?
Really, are you going to make?
Don't mess this up, don't costme sales, and early on we
stubbed our toe.
But I would tell you I couldn'tbe more proud of an initiative
(34:25):
in my career than this one.
I would tell you I couldn't bemore proud of an initiative in
my career than this one becauseof the complexity of it, charlie
, you know you've been in itwith us since the get-go.
This is something I would tellanybody else.
We got a blueprint here andwe're going to keep kind of
rinsing and repeating it, butit's something that's worth
sharing with those out therelistening.
(34:46):
Notice, I didn't say anything,charlie, about technology.
I didn't say anything abouttechnology at all because that's
the easy part.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's funny, doug, that, whether it's AI or a
massive point-of-sale deploymentor so many other things, and
it's about understanding andmanaging the process around
transformation, that's reallywhat it is.
It's that organizational change, it's that alignment with all
the stakeholders.
It's so many of the things thatwe've talked about.
It's a constant communicationand collaboration with all the
different stakeholders involved.
There's some really cool stuffthat's either here or coming
(35:24):
very soon around robotics andother things.
I know that you're even testingsome of those things, doug, in
your stores, but to me, ai isjust the next concentric circle
of transformation businesstransformation, digital
transformation, whatever youwant to call it.
It really is just the nextlevel of automation around these
(35:48):
things.
So, as I look at it, what Iunderstand at the core of Jack
is is you've helped them betterunderstand and execute
transformation at a at a largescale, with lots of constituents
, and and your leadership teamhas really had to push and drive
through that and build trustwith the communities and the
teams and the and the people allwhile you use the analogy right
(36:08):
Keeping the plane in the airand keeping the engines humming,
and you're trying to do all ofthis change without impacting
the speed or the quality of thatorder to the guest, and there's
just not a lot of room in therefor failure.
Your stores operate many of themjust there's just not a lot of
room in there for failure.
Your stores operate many ofthem 24 seven.
(36:28):
It's not like you're bringingstores down on a regular basis
to do this right.
A lot of restaurants, a lot ofretailers don't have that 24
seven model.
I'm the first one to tell you Ijoke with you all the time A
lot of my monster tacos areafter nine o'clock on the way
home from an awesome sportingevent, or grabbing something for
my kids after soccer orwhatever.
Right, I mean, you guys operatethat 24 hour model and so that
(36:53):
gives you very little tolerancefor when you can bring things
down and and and it's, it's just, it's just complex, it's, it's,
it's tough, but it's.
It can be fun too at the sametime.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, yeah, Brian, if we hit onthe hit on the heart of the
matter of the question there,brian, but you, hopefully you
could see there.
It's really what you said,charlie.
I think that's what makes anygood initiative, and especially
any transformation ortransformation oriented
initiative, be successful is allthe things that go on outside
(37:28):
the technology, because thetechnology is native to us.
We know how to build technology.
We can do that.
It's everybody and everythingaround it that you got to set up
for the best chance for success.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Hey Charlie, thinking about everything we've talked
about here today and the workthat we've done with Jack in the
Box to date, beyond, you know,just kind of navigating the
transformation journey, whatlessons can be learned from the
way Jack in the Box and Doughave done all of this that will
(38:09):
help other technology leaders orbusiness leaders for that
matter, navigate their AIjourneys.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Oh my gosh, a lot of lessons learned with any of
these big transformationinitiatives.
You know one just open, honest,transparent communication with,
as Doug said, where things are,where things should be, what's
working, what's not.
You can work together as a teamif everybody's communicating
and collaborating well.
(38:32):
So that open, honestcommunication with upwards to
the executives and all the waythroughout the rest of the
organization is huge.
I think that's a big part of it.
I think Doug also touched on theplanning and the prep, like the
amount of time that, even ifyou think you're ready, you're
still almost ready.
It's like the old joke of youcan be more ready to have kids
(38:55):
but you're never ready to havekids.
It's kind of the same thing withthese transformational
initiatives you think you'reready, you're almost there, but
there are always things whereyou're just you just don't know.
So, having the right teamcommunicating and collaborating,
and then you know, knowing thatthere are going to be hurdles,
there are going to be stumblingareas throughout these projects,
(39:17):
and how do you, both with yourown teams and with your partners
, how do you course correct?
Like?
To me, that's always the signof a good partnership, whether
it's your internal teamspartnering or partnering with
external companies like us.
It's not pretending that therewon't be issues, it's how do you
resolve those issues, how doyou work through those issues
and how do companies come out ofthat stronger on the other side
(39:39):
, in partnership either withtheir own teams or with business
partners like us.
And I think, brian, that's thekey on these big initiatives is
just that open, honestcommunication, collaboration,
trying to plan as best as youcan, but being smart enough to
know that you can't plan at alland you're going to have to
figure out some of it on the fly.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll build on that, brian.
I Charlie's spot on on all allthose comments.
One thing that I've had to doconscientiously is we've had to
do some talent development.
We really have a transformationof the size of which so many
companies are undertaking,including Jack in the Box,
(40:20):
requires modern engineering andproduct and engineering thinking
.
We didn't have a productorganization, charlie, or really
any engineering capability, soto take on the digital goals and
objectives of the business, wehad to step back and say, well,
what we have in technology rightnow, it's just not good enough
full stop, and so we need a newlevel of thinking, and we can
(40:42):
get that from partners like WWTand we have on data and on
digital and a POS.
But we had to own this.
We got to operate thislong-term, and so we got to have
capable, competent staffinternally, and so we built a
greater capacity is my point,and so I would tell everybody
out there doing a transformation, don't underestimate that.
(41:04):
But at the heart of it,charlie's just like hit the
bullseye there.
You know the communication,starting with people like myself
hey guys, let's.
This transformation is going tobe hard, it's going to be messy.
We're going to want to quit onit.
We're going to want to turnback.
It's worth it in the end.
Stick in there and stay inthere, because if we don't, then
(41:28):
we won't have a business likely, because there are people out
there working harder than we areand are pushing harder than we
are, and we not only have tocatch up, we have to, we have to
again sort of surpass andleapfrog to be a leader.
And so that's not been Jack inthe box thinking, in my
estimation, in years gone by,and that's not an insult on the
on any previous regimes, butthis growth strategy and
transformation thinking isreally relatively recent for
(41:50):
Jack and sort of been caught inour heels a little bit.
And so to step forward, we gotto double down, we really got to
move much faster.
And so with that, as Charliesaid, there's going to be
mistakes.
So we talked to our board, wetalked to our executive team.
Things aren't going to be rosy.
We're going to break some glass, we're going to cause some
challenges, but just know thatscale touches every part of our
(42:13):
business.
It affects HR, it affectssupply chain, it obviously
affects marketing, ops andtechnology SaaS contracts.
(42:46):
Now it's like you said, it'swe're operating in the cloud.
It's a totally different thing.
Our finance and accountingteams are like well, how do I,
how do we, how do we capitalizethis?
Can we even capitalize this?
Do we need to look at our yeah?
Yeah, we've had conversations inthe last well, since this
transformation began, and likewe've moved to cloud, just like
you talked about earlier, and wealso have.
(43:19):
And we've moved to cloud, justlike you talked about earlier,
and we also have, of course,increased staffing, both
externally and internally, andwe want to stretch that dollar,
we want to maximize the use ofour funds.
And so the question, so tospeak, so we can capitalize the
integration work, but thelicensing for the SaaS product,
we can't when before we'd bringthat in, stick it as an asset on
our books and deploy it locally.
And, like all thoseconversations, we've had to
revise our CapEx guidelines,charlie, and not only once.
(43:40):
We've done it two or threetimes with our audit partners,
because we're trying toliterally stay like with a
straight face in the lane butmaximize the use of our funds as
well so we can get the you knowthe again the maximum output as
part of that.
So like it has rocked everypart of our organization and
it's been my experience inmultiple transformations.
(44:00):
This happens, so get ready, forit is my point.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Yeah Well, that's a great time, or you know?
Fantastic insights to the bothof you.
Thank you so much for sharingtime.
I know we're up on the top ofthe hour here.
As it happens, here in St Louisis lunchtime.
Charlie, you've name droppedMonster Tacos enough times that
I think I might drive over andget some on my way home.
Doug, thank you so much forjoining and, charlie, as always,
thanks for having you.
(44:25):
Awesome stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Always great, doug.
Thank you for the time man.
I love catching up with you,and we've still got a lot of
work ahead, so let's just keepmoving.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, likewise Charlie.
You're the best.
Thank you, Brian, Appreciateyou.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Okay, before we wrap, here are three quick lessons
Doug and Charlie leave on thetable.
First, stabilize before youstrategize.
If your systems can't take anorder or swipe a card reliably,
every AI idea is just theater.
Think about how that applies toyour business.
Second, speed and accuracy arethe gatekeepers.
(44:58):
You can pilot anything you want, but it only graduates if it
accelerates processes orprovides more actionable
insights.
And third, transformation is ateam sport.
Transparent comms, ironcladprogram management and
rock-solid franchisee trust beatflashy tech.
Every time, the bottom line isnail the fundamentals, prove
(45:20):
value fast and keep everystakeholder in the loop.
Then AI stops being hype andstarts serving real meals at
scale.
If you liked this episode ofthe AI Proving Ground podcast,
please consider rating us orleaving us a review on whichever
platform you're listening, andyou can always find more
episodes and other great videocontent on wwwaicom.
This episode was co-produced byNaz Baker, cara Kuhn, mallory
(45:44):
Schaffran and Marissa Reed.
Our audio and video engineer isJohn Knobloch.
My name is Brian Felt.
See you next time.
From Worldwide Technology.
This is the AI Proving Groundpodcast.
Today, jack in the Box, chiefTechnology Officer Doug Cook and
WWT Chief Digital Advisor,charlie Lawhorn, give us a peek
inside the QuickServeRestaurant's AI transformation
journey, a multi-year effortthat serves as a playbook for
business leaders across allindustries for prioritizing AI
(00:22):
use cases and aligning teams andleadership to make it work.
Thank you.
Check on what it really takesto bring AI to the business with
minimal disruption, so, as AIbarrels toward your business,
(00:51):
pay attention to how Doug andCharlie talk about stabilizing
the basics before chasing thebuzz.
Line up every stakeholder withrelentless, transparent
communication and demand quick,measurable wins from each pilot
before scaling it company-wide.
This is the AI Proving Groundpodcast everything AI all in one
place.
Let's dive in.
Hey, doug, thanks for joiningtoday.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, good to see you , Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Charlie, good to see you, as always.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thanks, brian, great to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well, I've been looking forward to this episode
for quite some time.
I saw the two of you actuallyspeak together in a panel out in
Monterey, california I think itwas.
I want to say 2021 or 2022.
And, doug, you said somethingsuper insightful that I just
want to repeat back because Iwanted to kind of frame our
conversation and kick off wherewe're at.
You were talking about the needto stabilize infrastructure
(01:46):
before you can modernizeinfrastructure in order to
innovate, and your quote was myboard was wanting to start with
the sexy things like the storeof the future, but I had to fix
the core first.
If our restaurants can't takeor make or deliver an order, it
doesn't matter what else we do.
I wonder if you could take thatquote and this was before
generative AI even popped uponto the scene apply it to where
(02:07):
we're at today.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, thanks for that question, Brian.
Yeah, I remember very vividlysitting there on stage in
Monterey with Charlie talkingabout our business, and it's
good to be with you again,Charlie, as well.
So, yeah, I'm excited aboutwhere we're at today because
we're squarely in the middle ofthat modernization phase, but we
did have to spend back in 2021,when I joined the Jack in the
(02:32):
Box family, some 18 months,brian and Charlie, focusing on
stabilizing the systems.
I talked to our team and ourfranchisees about this.
Every time we get together, itdoesn't matter what's at the top
of that hype cycle, whetherit's a Gen AI or you remember
those days where it was big dataor anything else that's going
(02:55):
on that might be innovative.
If we can't accept, anoff-premise order or system is
unstable and unreliable and notworking for our business.
So I talked to our team and ourfranchisees about uninterrupted
operations, brian, and that'sreally the heart of the matter
(03:16):
is our technology at Jack in theBox and Del Taco should never
get in the way of running thebusiness each and every day, and
once we have that stability inplace, we know that and we talk
a lot about what we're capableof in the future, how we want to
be competitive, how we want toleapfrog our competition with
(03:37):
our technology.
But it's required us to puttogether a roadmap of
modernization to bring ourtechnology from the outdated
legacy we call it the vintagestate that it's in today Vintage
being that nice word for legacyBringing it up to the modern
kind of 2020 timeframe, where wethen can position the
(03:59):
technology to innovate andoptimize and really drive the
business going forward.
So that's what I meant by that,because when I joined the
business early on, thefranchisees were talking to me
about technology and again, it'sinhibiting our ability to move
forward.
They would ask me questionslike why can't we have tech like
this other quick servicerestaurant has?
(04:21):
And why is ours always breakingdown?
And largely because it wasn'tstable, it was in the way, the
way of the business, we weren'tmaking the investments that we
needed to make, uh, to reallykeep up and stay up, and so, as
a result, that was my focus andreally is my focus each and
every day is ensuring thetechnology is not interrupting
(04:42):
uh, you know the the transactionbetween us and our guests.
So does that resonate with you,charlie?
Does that make sense of whatyou see as you help so many
other companies, including Jackin the Box.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
It does, and you know , doug, you also, when we first
had that discussion, you wereright in the middle of you know,
the integration I'll call it ofJack and Del Taco and kind of
thinking through that.
So you kind of had a core stackwith Jack, a core stack with Del
, had to figure out how do youkind of combine those and then
both do that at the same time asmodernize.
(05:17):
And I know that's been amulti-year journey for you and
your teams and leadership reallythinking through that, you and
your teams and leadership reallythinking through that.
And I remember one of the otherparts that I found just super
interesting was, you know,balancing all of those technical
duties and leadership dutieswith you know communicating
effectively with your franchiseecommunity and making sure that
(05:40):
you know each one of yourfranchisee team members were
aligned and on board.
And you had a lot of differentteams that had different
opinions and perspectives.
So you kind of jumped into themiddle of a melting pot of all
types of change and challengeand trying to get everybody
aligned on a common path.
(06:01):
I think that's one of thethings that really astounded me
was not just the technicalchallenges but the business
challenges of building trust andgetting the franchisees to feel
like their investments weremeaningful towards the future of
your tech stack.
So to me, it wasn't just thetech, it was that aligned with
the business perspective as well.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, yeah, for me, you're right.
The technical challenges were,and still are, vast.
They're never ending in so manyways, because I'm learning
something new about ourarchitecture today that I didn't
know several years ago, andit's evolving our roadmap and
our plan and how we see targetstate.
(06:45):
But I've had the opportunity towork with franchisees across
three different brands andbuilding that connection that
you're talking about, thattrusted connection, where I'm
here not to sling aroundtechnology, I'm here to grow
(07:12):
their business and grow ourcollective business and achieve
the outcomes that really ourboard and our executive team we
set out to accomplish.
And so that's really meaningfulto me and one way to do that,
given that we're 95% franchiseowned, it's really important to
me that I have a strong, trustedrelationship with the
franchisees.
Really important to me that Ihave a strong, trusted
relationship with thefranchisees.
It's not always telling themwhat they want to hear.
It's really.
This is where we're at.
We're not as mature as we wantto be and I need your investment
(07:35):
, I need your support, I needyour guidance to help us evolve,
build and evolve a roadmap thatultimately again achieves all
of our goals and objectives.
So it's really critical.
It's at the heart of my jobevery single day and I'd argue
that really probably any highlyfranchised quick service
(07:55):
restaurant brand technologyleader probably feels the same
way I do and works at it thesame way I do as well.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think the reason I remember that part of the topic
so much is in this world of AI.
With AI everywhere impacting alldifferent parts of businesses,
I actually see more and morecompanies having a similar
challenge, not because they havethe franchisees, but AI is a
new technology that wasn't inmany cases, budgeted for, and so
(08:24):
people are having to go seekout funding and and to do that
they're having to actually lobbytheir, their, their business
stakeholders and their variousteams, and it just it constantly
makes me think of you having tohaving to make sure that you
had that alignment with all ofyour franchise franchisees,
because you know, ai didn't justthe board, doesn't just give
you another $50 million to goinvest in AI.
(08:44):
You have to find that 50 millionand re-slice the pie, or 10
million or 2 million or whateverthat is.
You have to re-slice the pieand to do that you have to get a
tremendous amount ofstakeholders on board to go both
investigate these technologiesor even deploy these
technologies.
So again, I use that examplefrom that discussion you and I
had so many times of like.
(09:05):
It's almost like a franchisee'smodel, and as soon as I say
that people are like, that makessense.
So believe it or not, doug,whether they're actually in a
franchisee model or not, moreand more companies are having to
solicit all of those differentlines of business, all of those
different groups, to getalignment around these new
technologies that they didn'thave to do a couple of years ago
and in the same way thatthey're doing now.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Charlie, that's a great point.
The board doesn't always justgive you $20, $50 million to go
explore or really kind ofinnovate with AI.
So not only do you have to findthe budget, you also have to
find use cases.
Doug, I'm hoping you can walkus through kind of innovate with
AI.
So not only do you have to findthe budget, you also have to
find use cases.
Doug, I'm hoping you can walkus through kind of how that
prioritization andidentification process went.
I know you know earlier thisyear at the Good Good Summit
which, by the way, fantasticevent that Jack in the Box you
(09:58):
know throws not only supporting,you know, restaurants, but
really kind of driving strategicdirection but you teased a
couple of AI use cases therethat you're prioritizing.
So walk me through that processwho you got to the table and so
forth.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, great question, brian, and I appreciate WWT's
participation in that Good GoodSummit.
It's a great partnership wehave together.
Yeah, so the prioritizationquestion you asked, and then the
use case identification we dothat largely through our tech
committees and our leadershipadvisory council, which is made
(10:33):
up of 12 franchisees Most ofthem are our most influential
franchisees who help us thinkthrough and business case out
these use cases that we want toexplore.
As you can imagine and, charlie, I'm sure you've seen this
before yourself there's no endto the number of ideas that our
teams have.
(10:54):
We talk about two problems thatwe have in our business and I
gather, just being around QSRquick service restaurants here,
as long as I have, these are thesame problems everybody faces.
We have a speed problem and wehave an accuracy problem, and so
we sort of look at all of oursolutions and ideas in the
(11:14):
context and through the lens ofhow can we be faster, because
after all, we are a quickservice restaurant, charlie.
And then accuracy, as Imentioned, nobody wants to go
through a drive-through and getthe food.
We've all been there, we gethome and then it's not made the
way you want it to be made.
So that's really kind of ourprioritization filter in terms
(11:39):
of sort of like our first pass,like our first pass, we also
have five business outcomes thatwe're all aligned around that
center on sales and margin andunit growth and customer guess
metrics.
So all those come into play.
We do that through ourleadership advisory council.
(12:00):
Now you mentioned the fundingpart.
Just between us here I know alot of our listeners are
probably going to understandwhat I'm saying here Our
franchisees it's difficult, it'schallenging, charlie, to get
additional capital from them.
Healthy tension between whatthe franchisor should fund and
(12:26):
what the franchisee shouldparticipate in funding.
So those conversations continue, especially as our funding
apparatuses started off with nooff-premise ordering, no AI,
none of this new technology inmind.
It was really just everythinggoing on inside the four walls
of a restaurant and that's kindof how our funding structures
have worked for so long.
(12:46):
And so we're challenging that,we're evolving that with our
franchisees and it doesn't feelvery good from their point of
view.
We talk about needing someadditional investment to bring
these technologies to bear.
So it's a healthy tension fieldconversation.
But that's how we go about that.
Do you think that's the rightapproach based on what you've
(13:07):
seen or what do you think?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
It sounds similar to so many other customers and so
many other businesses.
You know, doug, the interestingthing is when new technologies
pop up something like AI and thefunding isn't there.
What we see across the boardwhether you're in financials,
healthcare, entertainment,retail, the QSR, like yourselves
so many companies don't reallyhave a well-established model
(13:36):
around investigation of newtechnologies or really
understanding like innovativenew technologies.
So many companies kind of haveto scrape together, and what we
find, Doug, is differentbusiness lines, marketing IT
sales.
They all go test and deployindividual solutions.
(13:58):
Typically, it runs in the cloudor SaaS, and so that starts to
drive up some OPEX because it'seasy.
It's easy to quickly do thatand kind of test and tinker with
these technologies inlightweight ways.
What we're seeing, though, is,though, as they try and bring
those technologies in-house atscale, that conversion from that
simple test, that littleinnovative thing that they
(14:19):
wanted to do now, into anoperational budget, is where a
lot of companies are strugglingtoday.
It's, you know, I can find 50bucks to go run a test, or
50,000 to go deploy a pilot.
How do I get that intoproduction and how do we fund
that?
And that's not just you, doug,with a franchisee community.
It's all of these, all of thecustomers that we're working
(14:42):
with right now.
It's a real challenge for them,because I can't cut what I
needed yesterday to add what Ineed tomorrow.
So how do I do both?
And so we spend a lot of timeswith executives like you, doug,
really thinking through thereshuffling of the deck and
rethinking prioritization.
Rethinking prioritizationbecause that's what really
(15:07):
happens is you have to basicallystack rank your priorities and
then restack rank them on acontinual basis around these new
technologies, and it just makesit tough.
It's a stressful time forexecutives like you and
technology leadership, where thebusiness starts demanding all
of these new things.
They want to test and trial andplay with all these new
technologies.
You want to help do it in asafe and smart and scalable and
(15:29):
secure way.
It's tough to balance all ofthose things.
So I wish I could tell you thatthere's a magic bullet or
there's a simple nine by ninegrid that solves it for
everybody, but there's not.
It's really around executivealignment and prioritization of
business goals.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I think the business goals andoutcomes come first.
We struggle in the same waythat you just described.
We don't know everything.
We want to know.
These are largely bets andexperiments for us and everybody
else.
And, to your point, you know we,we struggle, we can.
We can stand up a pilot prettyquickly.
(16:09):
Uh, we've got some some goodbeginning AI options on voice.
You know voice AI in thedrive-through.
Can we use a computer to takean order?
Can we use Jack's voice?
Can we use some of ourpersonalities that are closely
identified with the brand?
Uh, to to engage our guestswhile our crew inside does the
productivity work they need todo on making food and getting it
(16:32):
ready.
But, to your point, scaling itis one of the biggest challenges
we face as well, not onlyfinancially, but operationally
and technically right.
We don't know all the answersto all the questions, so in so
many ways, we do go into thattest and learn mentality as well
.
I'm interested to hear yourperspective.
As you know so well thismodernization roadmap and plan
(16:55):
that we have in place we'retrying to address.
I'm trying to keep the teamsfocused.
A large percentage of ourbudget and our time is on
getting out of that legacythinking and environment with
technology.
It's holding us back and reallymodernizing that tech, at the
same time trying to keep an eyeon the innovative tech so we
don't get farther behind.
(17:15):
I'm curious.
We've talked a lot about thesetypes of things.
Just what's some wisdom therethat you've learned?
Talking, working with othercompanies?
What's the right balance?
How do I balance that?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Wow Gosh, I was expecting easy questions from
you, doug, Come on.
But no, seriously, it's, it's,it is.
It's a massive challenge.
The, the, the, the constantrebalancing of priorities and
you know, and it plays into alot of what type of money do we
have to spend also comes intoplay.
(17:49):
Is it OpEx?
Is it CapEx?
How do we want to deal withthis?
Those are challenges that we'reseeing on a regular basis.
We're watching pretty muchevery customer I work with is
overburdened from an OpExperspective, and how can we
convert those expenses back tomore capitalized assets?
That's a very, very, verycommon discussion and it drives
(18:11):
different behaviors right.
We watched doug.
So many people shift to a cloudfirst, or a cloud smart strategy
, yeah, and now we're watchingthem say, wait a minute.
Have we gone too far that way?
Should we bring some of thesetechnologies back in-house?
Or how do we do that?
Like, you have so manyrestaurants where you have to
have edge components for thesetechnologies.
(18:32):
And like, what can we put inthe cloud?
What can we put in the core?
What can we do at the edge?
You give great examples of likeI would love to order some
monster tacos from Jack.
I think that would be awesomefrom an experience perspective,
but you have to think aboutbalancing that all the way out
to like the tech in the store todeliver that experience with
ultra low latency and theintegration of that, like you
(18:56):
said, back into point of sale.
That allows for a veryfrictionless experience.
And you still have to havehumans moderating some of those
transactions in the beginning,especially to make sure that the
people are watching theseorders.
The quality is there.
You mentioned it.
Right.
It's the perfect combination ofyou want quality and speed, and
(19:16):
one without the other is afailure in either direction.
You could give me the best mealever, but if it takes an hour,
that doesn't help me.
That doesn't help me.
Yeah, you could give me ahorrible meal in a second, and
that doesn't help me either.
So I think you, like so manyothers, are going through this
education process andre-education with your
(19:38):
executives Because, as you know,doug, ai has become a
board-level discussion forpretty much everybody across all
the threads and I think theconstant reshuffling, getting
executives to understand howmuch this technology can impact
your employee or your guestexperiences, and helping them
understand how to do thesethings safely and smartly, the
(20:01):
amount of time that technologyteams are having to educate
their business counterparts istremendous and executives are
having to educate their business.
You know, counterparts istremendous and executives are
having to learn more and morethings about technology than
they've ever had to do before.
Right, they, they went tobusiness school to run a
business.
They they didn't all go totechnology school to understand
the technology of running abusiness, but but now those
(20:24):
things are emerging, they'rebecoming the same.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Right, yeah, well, that's great.
That's great.
I mean my job.
Every day, I feel like Charlie.
90% of my job is influencingand bringing people along and
educating, informing.
Now I've learned something new.
Now I've got to reshape whatI've already shared in the past
and sharing this overallnarrative and transformation
roadmap when I don't have allthe answers vulnerably and
(20:50):
honestly, I don't have all theanswers, but I'm looked to have
all those answers.
So it's exciting and thrillingand we're trying to embrace AI
in the midst of an environmentthat is old and outdated and I'm
sure not to feel sorry formyself, but I'm sure many, many
(21:11):
organizations out there arecaught and have been caught
between how do I keep moving thebusiness forward and keep pace
with the speed of the technologyand of how things?
You got to pivot in a momentthese days, you got to blunch
your competition.
You got to deal with thosethings that you know you gotta.
You gotta pivot in a momentthese days, yeah, you gotta.
You gotta blunch yourcompetition.
You gotta deal with thosethings that are coming at you
(21:31):
all the time.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
And it's.
It's also tough because youtalk about fundamentals and the
foundational aspects of thesetechnologies.
You've got to go back andrevisit your data platforms,
your data strategy.
What your data strategy and thearchitecture around your data
was of two years ago may not bewhat's needed to make some of
these new technologies performthe way you would like to, and
(21:53):
so you're constantly having toretouch work that you think you
just finished a massive dataproject and then you go wait a
minute, that was kind of pre-AI.
Now that I've got AI in themiddle of all of this, do I have
it set up the right way?
Is it going to drive the rightresults for some of these AI
solutions?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, yeah, we've touched every part of our
technology ecosystem.
We've had to pull out andreplace and modernize, do and
redo every part of ourtechnology, from ERP systems to
PLS platforms, to back a housesystems in the restaurant, to
our digital tech stack and data.
(22:31):
It's always under constructionand as part of that, you're
trying to explain to folks whodon't understand all the facets
of that why we're constantlyunder construction and why we
ongoing stream of investment andfunding, because if we don't do
it, obviously our competitionis going to do it, and so, um,
(22:53):
it's.
It may be one of the morecomplicated times ever for, for,
for people like yourself andmyself, and you know folks that
lead technology, uh, you know,uh, departments and businesses,
because it's, uh, the ideas.
It's really all about howfaster technology can respond to
those new ideas and pivot.
(23:14):
So again, I'm excited, I'mthrilled about it, but, man, it
keeps me up at night, everynight, it seems like yeah,
charlie.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I mean.
So much is up in the air,whether it's you're on the right
path for a use case, or you'retalking about funding or
prioritization.
The list goes on and on.
Given all that uncertainty,charlie, are there any like
signals or momentum points thatthat we should be looking out
for to know or feel confidentthat we're on the right path
towards accelerating and gettingcloser to that AI flywheel?
Speaker 3 (23:53):
It goes back to the basics, brian, of just start
small Test pilot play withtechnologies but get one or two
right, get some wins, get somesuccesses around those pilots,
those new technologies, newinnovations, because you got to
bring the rest of the business,the stakeholders, along for the
(24:14):
ride.
So you've got to show small butquick wins frequently to drive
that continual mindset andinvestment in these technologies
.
I think that's the key.
What I've noticed, brian andDoug please I want your thoughts
on this too the days of theyear-long project, before you
(24:35):
start to see a return, peopleused to talk about oh, can I get
a return in the first year?
It's changing the pace offunding, the pace of
expectations around value.
It's a quarterly of funding,the pace of expectations around
value.
It's a quarterly, it's, it's,it's what can I see this month
or this quarter to to impactboth, you know, my guests, my
employees, but possibly even mystock, and so we're seeing a lot
(24:58):
more.
You know, what can we do in sixweeks or eight weeks so that I
can start to see a result bythat 10th or 12th week?
Not, let's do a 25 week or,heck, a 52 week project.
It's, it's break it up intosmaller, more digestible chunks.
That allows me to show valuefaster.
And, doug, my guess is you're?
(25:18):
You're in a similar, a similarchallenge.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, a hundred percent, charlie.
Yeah, the days are over.
Use your words that that youcan just go off in a corner, and
we can't do it in IT alone.
You said that.
I think that might be theharder part of all of this is,
everybody has to come along onthe journey.
Everybody has to be at thetable that are helping our
(25:44):
organizations.
We have to be bringing thosepeople to the table.
We have to have them there.
I've got so many examples whereIT has run off and done what is
the right thing and had thewrong people, or not the right
people at the table, and thenit's a failure.
It's always a failure and it'sbeen IT-led as opposed to
(26:07):
business led.
So, to your point, the smallPOCs and the small pilots that
show proof of value.
And then I have learned havingreally strong architects and
tech leads on the team that arehelping us think about if this
wins, if this bet pays off, howare we going to scale this Right
?
How is the technology going toevolve so we can quickly go from
(26:30):
zero to 60?
Because, charlie, I'm guessingthat you see the same thing, but
in our world it's that worked.
Go faster, roll it all the wayout or roll to lots of markets.
And oftentimes we get trippedup there because we maybe took
some shortcuts early on, even inthe pilot of the POC.
We get tripped up there becausewe maybe took some shortcuts
early on, even in the pilot ofthe POC.
(26:50):
So it's, it's really that it'slike a razor's edge.
It's really a tight ropebetween doing that pilot,
quickly showing value, and thenbeing able to, to, to, to, to
scale it, uh, you know, quickly,so uh, but you said it, that's,
that's right, it's, it's, it'sthe basics of how you uh,
(27:10):
quickly show value and then, ifyou need to pivot, because it's
not working.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
You go on to the next idea and, doug, I also think on
the back end of that well, noton the back end, but on top of
all of that communication reallygood project management,
(27:40):
no-transcript, and so just thesemore complex engagements with
all of these stakeholders, allof these different people that
need to be part of the processjust a doubling down on really
good project management has beenimportant as well.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah it has.
We just did a project and we'regetting closer to the end of it
, which you might call one ofthe biggest projects that Jack
in the Box has ever taken on.
And for those out there thathave done big ERP projects, or,
in our case, an ERP at therestaurant which is replacing
our point of sale system, thisis the heart of a restaurant.
(28:17):
Everything runs through there.
Without that functioningproperly, you have no business.
We've done a bunch of worktogether on that WWT and Jack in
the Box.
We've done a bunch of worktogether on that WWT and Jack in
the Box and we've had atremendous project and program
management, largely from WWThelping to shepherd this thing
through.
And it shows the value.
(28:39):
As I sit back and watch overwhat really is a short time
horizon and now 12 months, we'verolled out hundreds, now
thousands, of locations with anew POS system and I sleep
pretty good at night.
We feel really good about thisprogram because it's on cruise
(29:00):
control Now.
There's a lot of work going on.
There's installations, there'sprocurement of hardware, there's
software configuration.
But, like you said, one of themost critical roles, maybe the
most important role, is thatquarterback, that program
project manager and all of usthat have been in IT know yeah,
project manager, project manager.
But when you're taking on aninitiative that's transformative
(29:24):
in nature, like what we'redoing together, that role is, I
mean, just paramount.
And getting that right like wehave it just heightens, it
increases your chances andprobability of success, which
I'm happy about for sure,because I don't get that right,
franchisees are calling me everyminute of the day and that's
(29:45):
just, that's no good, and ourbusiness is in a rough spot too.
So, whether it's an AI projector a modernization project or
anything of scale, you said it100% program project management,
somebody that can communicateeffectively, absolutely critical
.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I love the cruise control.
I'll go ahead and knock on woodfor you right now with that
statement, but I am interestedin the franchisee angle because
that seems like such a tall task, a boulder up a hill in terms
of.
(30:22):
You know, it's one thing toprove out an AI solution or
anything for that matter, butyou know how do you start to
scale it across a franchiseecommunity that might be
fragmented or might be justboots on the ground trying to
make things run day to day Doug.
How do you go about doing that,knowing that that's a pretty
applicable situation for manyother industries that might be
tuning in today?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, well, I wish I had the perfect algorithm for
how to do that.
We've been successful inseveral initiatives here at Jack
and the Box, one that I justmentioned here that I mean it
affects every single restaurantand every single franchisee and
every single employee in ourworkforce.
I think number one is wealready mentioned it, brian the
(31:00):
program and project managementand really the governance
structures.
That word governance oftentimesgets a bad rap governance we're
going to govern something butat the end of the day, without a
framework and awell-thought-out approach, which
we did.
And I'll give our teams credit,and I'll say to those that are
listening here don'tunderestimate that Our teams
(31:22):
early on came to me, brian andCharlie knows this, and our WWT
friends know this as well.
Hey, you know, our three guyscan do this.
Let us at it.
Coach, you know, um, and Iappreciate the zeal and I
appreciate the desire to saythat we can run a program of
this size, but, um, they reallydidn't know what we were, what
we're getting into here.
We really needed a level ofsophistication and maturity, uh,
(31:46):
to take on this initiative,much less anything of this size.
And then, along the way, weabsolutely needed a constant
communication and interactionmechanism with our franchisees.
Charlie can attest to this andagain, the teams can.
(32:07):
This thing didn't get off to themost rosy start, like most
projects, don't?
You've got to work throughthose hard early on challenges,
brian and Charlie.
You know this, charlie, thatestablishes trust, establishes
credibility, establishesexcellence and quality.
And listen, I'm coming in withnew technology, but we're not
(32:31):
going to disrupt your business.
We're not going to put you in aposition where your employees
can't take care of the guest oryou're losing money.
We had to overcome thattogether as a team and there
really isn't any recipe that Ican think of right now.
That's just like a surefirething for that.
For me personally, it's reallygathering around me and our team
trusted senior level thinkersand thought leadership and
(32:58):
partnership people that are allin kind of people and I'm
thinking of those people rightnow, charlie, that you know of
that said hey, this is going tobe tough, this is not going to
be easy, we all know it.
But we're here for said hey,this is going to be tough, this
is not going to be easy, we allknow it.
But we're here for the longhaul and we're going to battle
through together to make thissuccessful, and that's why I say
the cruise control now, brian,because nothing's on cruise
(33:20):
control.
There's always choppy air ahead, so to speak.
But when you hit that choppyair at thousands of locations in
, it's because you work throughthat ascent to get to cruise
control way back at 10 and 50and 100 restaurants in our case.
For this project and, I think,an AI project anything of scale
(33:42):
goes through that life cycle andeverybody needs to be ready for
it.
I was ready for it but wasn'tready for it.
I've been through several ofthese myself, but you got to
have an army, a village ofpeople that you trust in your
inner circle, that are workingon your behalf and have the
experiences and the reps ofdoing this and have resilience.
(34:03):
They're going to perseverethrough challenges, which we all
did, and our franchisees werequestionable about this early on
.
Do you have what you need done?
Really, are you going to make?
Don't mess this up, don't costme sales, and early on we
stubbed our toe.
But I would tell you I couldn'tbe more proud of an initiative
(34:25):
in my career than this one.
I would tell you I couldn't bemore proud of an initiative in
my career than this one becauseof the complexity of it, charlie
, you know you've been in itwith us since the get-go.
This is something I would tellanybody else.
We got a blueprint here andwe're going to keep kind of
rinsing and repeating it, butit's something that's worth
sharing with those out therelistening.
(34:46):
Notice, I didn't say anything,charlie, about technology.
I didn't say anything abouttechnology at all because that's
the easy part.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's funny, doug, that, whether it's AI or a
massive point-of-sale deploymentor so many other things, and
it's about understanding andmanaging the process around
transformation, that's reallywhat it is.
It's that organizational change, it's that alignment with all
the stakeholders.
It's so many of the things thatwe've talked about.
It's a constant communicationand collaboration with all the
different stakeholders involved.
There's some really cool stuffthat's either here or coming
(35:24):
very soon around robotics andother things.
I know that you're even testingsome of those things, doug, in
your stores, but to me, ai isjust the next concentric circle
of transformation businesstransformation, digital
transformation, whatever youwant to call it.
It really is just the nextlevel of automation around these
(35:48):
things.
So, as I look at it, what Iunderstand at the core of Jack
is is you've helped them betterunderstand and execute
transformation at a at a largescale, with lots of constituents
, and and your leadership teamhas really had to push and drive
through that and build trustwith the communities and the
teams and the and the people allwhile you use the analogy right
(36:08):
Keeping the plane in the airand keeping the engines humming,
and you're trying to do all ofthis change without impacting
the speed or the quality of thatorder to the guest, and there's
just not a lot of room in therefor failure.
Your stores operate many of themjust there's just not a lot of
room in there for failure.
Your stores operate many ofthem 24 seven.
(36:28):
It's not like you're bringingstores down on a regular basis
to do this right.
A lot of restaurants, a lot ofretailers don't have that 24
seven model.
I'm the first one to tell you Ijoke with you all the time A
lot of my monster tacos areafter nine o'clock on the way
home from an awesome sportingevent, or grabbing something for
my kids after soccer orwhatever.
Right, I mean, you guys operatethat 24 hour model and so that
(36:53):
gives you very little tolerancefor when you can bring things
down and and and it's, it's just, it's just complex, it's, it's,
it's tough, but it's.
It can be fun too at the sametime.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, yeah, Brian, if we hit onthe hit on the heart of the
matter of the question there,brian, but you, hopefully you
could see there.
It's really what you said,charlie.
I think that's what makes anygood initiative, and especially
any transformation ortransformation oriented
initiative, be successful is allthe things that go on outside
(37:28):
the technology, because thetechnology is native to us.
We know how to build technology.
We can do that.
It's everybody and everythingaround it that you got to set up
for the best chance for success.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Hey Charlie, thinking about everything we've talked
about here today and the workthat we've done with Jack in the
Box to date, beyond, you know,just kind of navigating the
transformation journey, whatlessons can be learned from the
way Jack in the Box and Doughave done all of this that will
(38:09):
help other technology leaders orbusiness leaders for that
matter, navigate their AIjourneys.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Oh my gosh, a lot of lessons learned with any of
these big transformationinitiatives.
You know one just open, honest,transparent communication with,
as Doug said, where things are,where things should be, what's
working, what's not.
You can work together as a teamif everybody's communicating
and collaborating well.
(38:32):
So that open, honestcommunication with upwards to
the executives and all the waythroughout the rest of the
organization is huge.
I think that's a big part of it.
I think Doug also touched on theplanning and the prep, like the
amount of time that, even ifyou think you're ready, you're
still almost ready.
It's like the old joke of youcan be more ready to have kids
(38:55):
but you're never ready to havekids.
It's kind of the same thing withthese transformational
initiatives you think you'reready, you're almost there, but
there are always things whereyou're just you just don't know.
So, having the right teamcommunicating and collaborating,
and then you know, knowing thatthere are going to be hurdles,
there are going to be stumblingareas throughout these projects,
(39:17):
and how do you, both with yourown teams and with your partners
, how do you course correct?
Like?
To me, that's always the signof a good partnership, whether
it's your internal teamspartnering or partnering with
external companies like us.
It's not pretending that therewon't be issues, it's how do you
resolve those issues, how doyou work through those issues
and how do companies come out ofthat stronger on the other side
(39:39):
, in partnership either withtheir own teams or with business
partners like us.
And I think, brian, that's thekey on these big initiatives is
just that open, honestcommunication, collaboration,
trying to plan as best as youcan, but being smart enough to
know that you can't plan at alland you're going to have to
figure out some of it on the fly.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll build on that, brian.
I Charlie's spot on on all allthose comments.
One thing that I've had to doconscientiously is we've had to
do some talent development.
We really have a transformationof the size of which so many
companies are undertaking,including Jack in the Box,
(40:20):
requires modern engineering andproduct and engineering thinking
.
We didn't have a productorganization, charlie, or really
any engineering capability, soto take on the digital goals and
objectives of the business, wehad to step back and say, well,
what we have in technology rightnow, it's just not good enough
full stop, and so we need a newlevel of thinking, and we can
(40:42):
get that from partners like WWTand we have on data and on
digital and a POS.
But we had to own this.
We got to operate thislong-term, and so we got to have
capable, competent staffinternally, and so we built a
greater capacity is my point,and so I would tell everybody
out there doing a transformation, don't underestimate that.
(41:04):
But at the heart of it,charlie's just like hit the
bullseye there.
You know the communication,starting with people like myself
hey guys, let's.
This transformation is going tobe hard, it's going to be messy.
We're going to want to quit onit.
We're going to want to turnback.
It's worth it in the end.
Stick in there and stay inthere, because if we don't, then
(41:28):
we won't have a business likely, because there are people out
there working harder than we areand are pushing harder than we
are, and we not only have tocatch up, we have to, we have to
again sort of surpass andleapfrog to be a leader.
And so that's not been Jack inthe box thinking, in my
estimation, in years gone by,and that's not an insult on the
on any previous regimes, butthis growth strategy and
transformation thinking isreally relatively recent for
(41:50):
Jack and sort of been caught inour heels a little bit.
And so to step forward, we gotto double down, we really got to
move much faster.
And so with that, as Charliesaid, there's going to be
mistakes.
So we talked to our board, wetalked to our executive team.
Things aren't going to be rosy.
We're going to break some glass, we're going to cause some
challenges, but just know thatscale touches every part of our
(42:13):
business.
It affects HR, it affectssupply chain, it obviously
affects marketing, ops andtechnology SaaS contracts.
(42:46):
Now it's like you said, it'swe're operating in the cloud.
It's a totally different thing.
Our finance and accountingteams are like well, how do I,
how do we, how do we capitalizethis?
Can we even capitalize this?
Do we need to look at our yeah?
Yeah, we've had conversations inthe last well, since this
transformation began, and likewe've moved to cloud, just like
you talked about earlier, and wealso have.
(43:19):
And we've moved to cloud, justlike you talked about earlier,
and we also have, of course,increased staffing, both
externally and internally, andwe want to stretch that dollar,
we want to maximize the use ofour funds.
And so the question, so tospeak, so we can capitalize the
integration work, but thelicensing for the SaaS product,
we can't when before we'd bringthat in, stick it as an asset on
our books and deploy it locally.
And, like all thoseconversations, we've had to
revise our CapEx guidelines,charlie, and not only once.
(43:40):
We've done it two or threetimes with our audit partners,
because we're trying toliterally stay like with a
straight face in the lane butmaximize the use of our funds as
well so we can get the you knowthe again the maximum output as
part of that.
So like it has rocked everypart of our organization and
it's been my experience inmultiple transformations.
(44:00):
This happens, so get ready, forit is my point.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Yeah Well, that's a great time, or you know?
Fantastic insights to the bothof you.
Thank you so much for sharingtime.
I know we're up on the top ofthe hour here.
As it happens, here in St Louisis lunchtime.
Charlie, you've name droppedMonster Tacos enough times that
I think I might drive over andget some on my way home.
Doug, thank you so much forjoining and, charlie, as always,
thanks for having you.
(44:25):
Awesome stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Always great, doug.
Thank you for the time man.
I love catching up with you,and we've still got a lot of
work ahead, so let's just keepmoving.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, likewise Charlie.
You're the best.
Thank you, Brian, Appreciateyou.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Okay, before we wrap, here are three quick lessons
Doug and Charlie leave on thetable.
First, stabilize before youstrategize.
If your systems can't take anorder or swipe a card reliably,
every AI idea is just theater.
Think about how that applies toyour business.
Second, speed and accuracy arethe gatekeepers.
(44:58):
You can pilot anything you want, but it only graduates if it
accelerates processes orprovides more actionable
insights.
And third, transformation is ateam sport.
Transparent comms, ironcladprogram management and
rock-solid franchisee trust beatflashy tech.
Every time, the bottom line isnail the fundamentals, prove
(45:20):
value fast and keep everystakeholder in the loop.
Then AI stops being hype andstarts serving real meals at
scale.
If you liked this episode ofthe AI Proving Ground podcast,
please consider rating us orleaving us a review on whichever
platform you're listening, andyou can always find more
episodes and other great videocontent on wwwaicom.
This episode was co-produced byNaz Baker, cara Kuhn, mallory
(45:44):
Schaffran and Marissa Reed.
Our audio and video engineer isJohn Knobloch.
My name is Brian Felt.
See you next time.
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