Marie Dubernais Country Manager Canada
Franchisees as well as franchisors have a resource that is often scarcely exploited: a network of knowledge and practices. Integrating a banner does not only have the advantage of providing the necessary means (market, "how to", products, know-how, commercial means, marketing means, signs ...) to limit the risks to a bare minimum. Indeed, the considerable advantage of a commercial network is to be able to benefit from the best practices of the banner in order to reproduce them within its point of sale and thus improve its overall performance.
Franchisor, do I know my best practices?
Sources of information collection and storage are multiple within the same banner. There are multiple cash register (POS) and accounting systems, incomplete or manual (Excel) data transfer methods, or unidentified comparison items.
In order to understand the best practices, it is possible to ask ourselves a few simple questions: What percentage of the costs represent the salaries in a successful outlet? What is the impact of the concept or province on turnover? What are the best practices related to seasonality? Does compliance with the operation manual impact sales?
Here are a few elements to identifying and developing best practices management:
- The best practices management process involves identifying sources of information and flows (transfers). The implementation of a knowledge map can facilitate the identification of knowledge hubs as well as key players in the knowledge management process.
- The identification of key performance indicators at each service level (customer satisfaction, retention rate, margin, turnover, etc.).
- Setting up a software allowing the centralization of the network's data (CRM, database, finances, operations, audits, ...).
- Creating reports within the software to track individual or consolidated indicators and disseminate information to different stakeholders. These analyzes must be based on comparative elements (type of concept, size, location, etc.) allowing users to benchmark similar sales outlets and thus to identify the differences between one performing point of sale from another.
My tools are now in place to allow me to identify best practices based on the characteristics of the point of sale and to share them with members of the franchise network in order to provide new insights.
Franchisee, am I performing well in relation to my network?
I could see from year to year the improvement or deterioration of certain indicators (sales, margins, cash, average bill), but am I performing well compared to the network to which I belong?
Many franchisees do not want to share their numbers and practices with the rest of the network out of fear of internal competition, whether it comes from franchisees or franchisors. Despite this belief, internal competition is rare thanks to areas of exclusivity legally binned within your contract. Trust is also a key characteristic in the success of a franchise since it relies in particular on give and take phenomenon. A customer living in Ottawa and satisfied with the franchisee of his city will be faithful and, during a trip, will go to a franchisee of the same banner rather than to an external competitor.
Sharing information and building a community of practices is beneficial for everyone. A more efficient network improves the brand image by guaranteeing identical experience and quality of service from one point of sale to another. An efficient network attracts new candidates for the franchisor, thus improving the catchment area as well as size of the banner.
As a franchisee, it is important to be able to easily access my financial or operational performance to improve from year to year and understand the strategies that work best. I also need to be able to access an anonymised benchmark of franchisees similar to me in order to compare my management and discover areas of improvement. The easier the access to information about my point of sale and that of a comparable panel, the more my management becomes effective and allows me to be proactive.
Marie Dubernais
Country manager Canada
