ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Global domination may seem like a heady goal, but that’s exactly what Richard E. Allison, president and CEO of Domino’s Pizza Inc., envisions for the Ann Arbor-based pizza chain.

“We are … going to raise the bar on our system and set an aspirational goal for where we want to take this brand going forward,” Allison told investors during a Jan. 17 investor day meeting. “We passed our largest competitor in the US and internationally to be No. 1 just recently. So, it’s time to set a new goal for our business, and that is to be the dominant No. 1 pizza player in the world.”

Allison described “dominant” in a couple ways. First, it means 25,000 Domino’s pizza stores around the world. The company operated 15,300 stores in more than 85 countries around the world as of late last year.

Second, it means eclipsing $25 billion in global retail sales by the year 2025. The company’s 2017 global retail sales totaled $12.2 billion.

Allison said Domino’s has spent the past seven or eight months working on aligning its system around the goals.

“The reason we want to achieve that goal is not just because it’d be fun to stand up here in 2025, and rah-rah we got 25,000 stores,” he said. “It creates a virtuous cycle in our business, it matters, and it matters starting with winning in every neighborhood and market. You don't get to be dominant No. 1 in the world without being dominant No. 1 in the local neighborhood. And when we talk about fortressing, fortressing is all about being dominant No. 1 in the neighborhood. It’s about having the highest delivery sales per household, the highest carryout sales per household in each market. That drives the best unit and franchisee economics.”

Aside from chasing the goal of becoming the dominant player in pizza, Allison told investors that a number of things aren’t going to change at Domino’s. Priority No. 1 at Domino’s will continue to be focus, both on pizza and on the company’s franchise model.

“We really like being in the pizza business, and we’re going to stay focused on being in the pizza business,” he said. “We’ve got a really enviable No. 1 position with massive growth opportunity still ahead of us. I like the fact that everyone in our management team and all of our franchisees wake up, and they are focused on selling pizza, 300,000-plus team members around the world who wear the Domino’s Pizza uniform are focused on selling pizza. That’s the business we’re in, and that’s the business we want to stay in.”

He also said the company does not intend to stop making front-footed investments.  

“We’re going to invest in technology; we’re going to continue to do that,” Allison said. “Not just consumer-facing technology, which is the thing that gets all the news, but we’re going to continue to invest in our point-of-sale system; we’re going to continue to invest in our supply chain systems. So, technology is going to continue to be an important area for us.”

Allison also said Domino’s will continue to invest in supply chain capacity. He said the company opened the largest Domino’s supply chain center in the world in Edison, New Jersey, in the second half of 2018.