Retooling the Enterprise, Taking it to Scale: Navigating the Hazards of Large-Scale Execution

Former Sonic Drive-In CEO Cliff Hudson and cohost Craig Miller get together with key architects John Budd and Christina Vaughan to dissect one of retail’s most ambitious transformations: retrofitting 3,500 drive-ins with integrated POS, digital menu boards, and customer tech following the Great Recession. They reveal how the team navigated franchisee skepticism, change management, overnight installations (including a literal dumpster fire), and the perilous trade-offs of scaling complex systems across a fragmented network. Discover why "bad news doesn’t get better with time" became their mantra, how franchisee trust turned skeptics into allies, and why prioritizing progress over perfection was non-negotiable. Plus: how these crisis-tested strategies later shaped Oklahoma’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. A masterclass in operational brinkmanship—when betting the company meant converting at least 22 stores a week without shutting down the brand.