• Detroit Free Press, Friday, March 19, 2010 10:47 AM

Columnist Tom Walsh finds it telling that J. Patrick Doyle, the new CEO of Domino's Pizza, spent his first days on the job last week in India, where it opened its 300th outlet, and Saudi Arabia. The future of the company's growth is overseas. "In the next three to five years, our sales outside the U.S. will surpass our sales here," says Doyle.

About 55% of Domino's $5.6 billion in sales last year were in the U.S., but domestic growth will largely come from taking share from mom-and-pop stores and small chains.

Doyle says that the company's new ad campaign, which features employees reading scathing customer comments about its old pizza recipe, is generating buzz despite the odds. "We knew going in that anything we called 'new and improved' would be a terrible starting point," he tells Walsh. "Consumers would block it out." But Doyle says that "telling the truth about what our customers said and doing something about it" is paying off.

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