#franchisemanagementsolution

The food service industry is one of the fastest-growing in the world. That's a direct result of our current lifestyle. People don't seem to have the time, nor the will to cook for themselves. It is the food service industry that is cashing in on that trend. From the looks of things, that's a trend set to grow, without any signs of stopping anytime soon. Therefore, investing in a food start-up franchise makes perfect sense. Here’s our blueprint on how to choose the right franchise for your food start-up.

Ask yourself: What do I want to accomplish through franchise?

This is all about being honest with yourself, knowing what you want to accomplish, and what can you achieve. But most important of all, you need to know your limits, both financial and else wise. You need to be clear with yourself about all those things so that later you don’t end up overreaching and making wrong estimates. The truth is, investing in a franchise means that you will always be making decisions. Decisions for which you will need to make your best estimate given the current situation and factors. By knowing yourself and your limits, you can make better and smarter decisions.  

How Much Can You Invest?

Food start-up, or some other type of start-up, you need to set up a budget before making your move. Nowadays, there are franchise food start-ups that can be started with $10K and some that require an investment in a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Of course, there are plenty in between. Keep in mind that aside from your initial investment in the franchise, you will need to take into account operational costs daily. These costs need to be covered until your start-up starts generating cash.

Explore The Food Franchise Landscape

This is about looking at your options, what’s out there, the cost, what people like, what they dislike, how is getting great reviews, who not so much. The idea is to get a sense of what’s available and maybe even make a list of potential food franchise businesses you might invest in. At this point, it will be like casting a big net and seeing what will come out. The ones that are out of your budget limit, are too demanding, are getting bad reviews, or you don't like their food, they are the ones that you need to eliminate from your list first.

Choose Facts Over Emotions

Thing is you might like franchise very much. You like their products, how they serve their clients, their business model, and everything in between. However, don't just rely on your instinct, or you might end up losing money. In some countries, franchisors are obligated to disclose all their documents. That way, you can have the full picture at hand before making any financial or legal commitment.

Talk To Franchises

Let's say you've identified a specific franchise opportunity, you've talked to their representatives, checked all available documents, and from the look of things they look solid. The next step is talking to some of the franchises. Don't just talk to the ones that they will recommend you, but also other random franchises. That way, you can have a better feel at what it means to be a franchise for that particular company. Furthermore, if you can find them, you can even talk to former franchises. The ones that invested and failed to make a profit. Their experience and feedback can be both indispensable and very revealing.

How Long Does It Take To Return Your Investment?

Whether it is a food franchise or some other, it all comes down to how fast you can return your investment, and how much you can earn. Again, it’s all about doing your research, going through the numbers, how fast other franchises got their initial investment back, and how much they earn per year.

Is The Franchisor Easy To Work With?

Truth is some franchisors are way better than others and take great care of their franchises. Typically, the ones that spend more time helping put their franchises, provide a lot of training and support, are the best and most successful ones.

Review The Franchise Agreement With Your Lawyer

This is so you know exactly what you are getting into; what are your legal obligations, what you are entitled to get from your franchisor, what will happen if there is a breach of the agreement from some of the sides, and so on. Take your time to understand every aspect of the agreement, what it means to you, its relation to the local laws and regulations.

In Conclusion

Running a successful franchise business is no easy thing. But at the same time, it can be a massive opportunity. To put things into a better perspective, the franchise industry generates more than $2.1 trillion each year. During this hard covid impact it is more important to revise & fine tune your business processes with right franchise management techniques. According to the International Franchise Association, almost 5% of all small businesses in the US are part of some franchise. Furthermore, there are over 900,000 franchise businesses across the country that employ over 18 million people. However, there are as many new franchise businesses as there are those that close shop permanently. There can be various reasons why some franchise businesses thrive, and others fail. The one thing that stands as a common denominator for all successful franchise businesses is a great franchise management solution. According to a survey run by the International Franchise Association, more than two-thirds of all surveyed franchise businesses said that they couldn't be as efficient as they were without their software management solution. In that survey, they have listed some of the best features of the franchise management solution they are using. Here they are:

Centralized Control

This feature enables you to always be on top of things and have all data easily accessed. It is the core feature of many franchise management solutions out there. Ideally, it integrates data from all outlets, branches, and territories. Plus, the data is presented in a way that you can easily recognize trends, patterns, and performances. The best solutions have a centralized control that features a user-friendly UI. That's not all; it also covers all business processes related to your franchise business.

Workflow Optimization

This is all about being able to analyze the process and optimize it. Every top-rated software management solution is built on the premise of continuous improvement. A big part of workflow optimization is workflow automation. That way, it is possible to convert some of the repetitive workloads into free-running operations for increased efficiency. By doing so, the user can spend less time on repetitive work and focus on other, more critical aspects of the business. 

Inventory Management

All the best software management solutions offer excellent inventory management that can automate ordering, tracking, supply, and storing inventory. That way, all of your franchisees are always well-supplied, you can keep track of their performances, and you can make supply plans. Logistic play a big part in every franchise business. The better this feature, the easier it gets to optimize your supply chain, all goes smoothly, and most important of all, uninterrupted.

Integration

Integration can additionally help optimize your workflow, smarter use of available data, increased BI, and so on. The list of benefits can be quite extensive and can vary from case to case. Cloud integration is also recommended. That way, your franchisees can also have access to some of the features and data. As a result, they can also take advantage of that to improve their internal processes and workflow. Once everything is in the cloud, they can access it easier from any place or device.

Reporting

Nothing will matter much if your franchise management solution doesn’t come with good reporting. Reports can and should bring you insights into how each franchise outlet is doing, are they lagging in some area, how are their sales, revenue, customer lows and highs, and so on. The reporting tool should be easy to use and very comprehendible on both sides, the side that makes the report, and the end-user. At the same time, it needs to contain top data and metrics. All of which are essential in making business decisions that will help you run a profitable franchise business. Based on those reports, franchise owners and managers can analyze key metrics, and send recommendations to their franchisees.

Analytic Tools

Thorough reports and the metrics derived from there can be of great help. However, sometimes we can’t see the entire picture from all that data. That is when the analytics tools come in place. They can reveal something that went under the radar, yet it can be a game-changer or a hint to some new trend. Sometimes it can be a positive trend, other times a negative trend. But in any case, it will help you be ahead of the curve and prepare a strategy that addresses the issue promptly. To that end, many franchise software management tools leverage powerful BI and AI algorithms. 

In Conclusion Franchise Management Solution