Panera had a problem. At lunchtime, customers were mobbing the counters to order and pick up, and it was a mess. It was frustrating for everyone involved, and management knew they were probably missing out on sales because of it.
The company's founder turned to Blaine Hurst to lead the search for a solution. As the company's chief technology officer, he put together a team to make Panera a leader in digital ordering and fast pickup. First through a website and in-store kiosks and now through mobile ordering and delivery, those tech efforts have paid off. The company now books more than $1 billion worth of digital orders a year, and digital is more than a quarter of total sales.
To talk about how he got there, I sat down with Hurst for this week's Fortt Knox 1-on-1. The answer isn't what I expected. There was no getting buy-in from across the company about what the problem was before the team crafted a solution. And now that he's the CEO and not the CTO, he's had to shift his methods somewhat.
