DALLAS _ Earlier this year, Laura Rea Dickey was named CEO of Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants Inc. _ not all that startling until you realize that Rea is her maiden name.
She's the 38-year-old wife of Roland Dickey Jr. and daughter-in-law of Roland Dickey Sr., the iconoclastic patriarch of the nation's largest barbecue chain that dates back to 1941.
Her ascension to mistress of the barbecue pit is an anomaly on another front: She's a terrible cook.
"That is not the part of the business that I impact, I promise," Laura says. "It's a Dickey's family tradition that the men cook. So I got on board with that really fast. I can make reservations and a martini, and that's it."
That may be true for the kitchen, but Laura holds considerable sway when it comes to technology, big data and marketing. In her previous role as Dickey's chief information officer, she built an eight-year road map for bringing the family's slow-smoked barbecue business into the lightning-speed digital age.
Such advanced technology is a must for a company that's in a torrid expansion mode.
Four years into it, every restaurant operator can tap into point-of-sale analytics, study data heat maps and market directly to customers via the proprietary Smoke Stack system that Dickey's co-developed with iOlap, a Dallas-area big data provider.
Dickey's and franchisees can spot on the spot what's working in the 565 stores and what's not to make adjustments on the fly.
Customers can order online and have their food delivered by third-party services, such as Grubhub and Doordash. Come September, a customer app will use beaconing technology so that you can pick up your order curbside without getting out of your car.
Currently, the five company-owned Dickey's Barbecue Pits, including the original in Dallas, are test driving Amazon's Alexa Voice Service before it's rolled out to all of its stores by the end of the year.
Not that long ago, the original flagship was still using a cash register and faxing in sales reports.
"It's our Hey, Alexa!" says Laura. "An owner-operator or store manager can ask her: 'Hey Alexa! When's my delivery due to arrive?' 'What are my sales so far today?' 'What are my costs of goods this hour?' 'How many ribs do I have in the smoker?'"
Dale Smith, 49, who became Dickey's first franchisee in 1995, is stoked about adding the voice system to his five Dallas-Fort Worth stores.
"Geez, I started doing this 22 years ago, and I never would have thought I would be talking to Alexa to get information or to get things done," he says. "As I understand it, you can continue smoking meats and preparing food while you check your email or place an order with Sysco. I'm pretty excited about that."
