ANN ARBOR ? Servant Systems, a software solutions provider to international franchise systems, has landed another major contract ? to integrate and implement Domino?s Pizza Pulse Franchise Office and Pulse Polling systems for 25 Domino?s stores in the United Kingdom.

Servant Systems has implemented the Domino?s software for other multi-unit franchisees in Britain, in other countries, and in the United States since the application was first deployed in 2005.

?We?d say for us it is getting our foot in the front door of a pretty substantial market,? said Don DeSmith, president of Servant Systems. ?There are a large number of Domino?s stores in the U.K. We?re also talking with Domino?s franchises in France, and the Netherlands. In part, we follow behind the roll out of the Domino?s Pulse System internationally.?

DeSmith said the Pulse Franchise Office system collects and validates information in a central site. It then generates reports to store managers, and sends the financial data to the accounting system. Payroll processing is a huge part of it. Employees are paid different rates if they are working in stores, or driving for delivery. The payments for mileage vary by states. The system software is written using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and is highly customizable, including support for international differences such as date formats and currency.

Servant Systems has been a member of the Microsoft Partner Network since 1992. The company also is a member of the International Franchise Association.

Bruce Franson, Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, said Domino?s owns the Pulse license, and Servant Systems charges a fee to install the software. Servant Systems has done 100 percent of the development. In the United States alone, more than 1000 Domino?s stores use the Pulse Franchise Office and Pulse Polling system. Domino?s has about 4,500 total U.S. stores, so Servant System has competitors for other the Domino?s business.

?We?re the only one doing automated feed to payroll and accounting,? Franson said. ?Others are oriented towards a smaller number of stores. We?ve got the big boys.?

Big boys like Bill Graves, who said he is the second largest Domino?s Pizza Franchise store operator in the United States, with 93 stores in nine states, including Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. None in Michigan, though.

?We haven?t worked with many folks in Servant Systems, but we?ve worked with Bruce a ton,? said Graves, who set up his first Domino?s franchise in Willmar, Minnesota, in 1984. ?They are incredible. We give them a project, and we?re not an easy company to work with, and they execute it flawlessly. Bruce has taken our office and streamlined what used to take two or three days down to one.?

Graves said he started working with Servant Systems in 2008. They were a referral from Domino?s headquarters in Ann Arbor.

?Servant is extremely good at what they do and extremely ethical about how they do it and that is extremely hard to find in this day and age,? Graves said.

Ethics is part of Servant Systems business and life mantra. Franson and DeSmith are both members of the Servants of the Word, an all-male religious order founded in Ann Arbor more than 40 years ago. The members have taken vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience to God.

?We?re not technically monks, but we sort of are,” Franson told the Ann Arbor News in a story that ran in 2006. Franson serves as the pastoral leader of the household. ?We?re brothers with a small ?b,?? added DeSmith.

For two decades, the men of this ecumenical group have toiled to make quality software to support their way of spiritual life, which includes Catholic and Protestant worshipers. The name Servant reflects what the group believes is their call from God to be servants of Jesus Christ. And like other monks of Buddhist or Christian traditions, they?ve lived a life that is mostly hidden from view on 170 wooded acres the Servants of the Word own near Chelsea.

Franson and DeSmith, who began running the company in 1992, refer to themselves as ?monks in the marketplace.? Both have MBAs from the University of Michigan. Reflecting their background, Servant Systems is focused on helping franchisees run their businesses more efficiently.

For Domino?s Pizza, their software measures how long it takes from the point a pizza is ordered to the time it?s out the door, and much more. By Monday morning, after the typically busy weekend period, Domino?s executives are able to view how their franchises performed through the Pulse Franchise Office and Pulse Polling systems developed by these monks in business suits. You could almost call it a match made in heaven.

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