How Does Franchise Management Software Help A Franchise Business?

Today’s post is all about helping owners complete their due diligence before investing in franchise management software. Read on to learn the benefits, from franchise lead management to productivity.

What Is Franchise Management Software?

Franchise management software is a modular cloud-based solution that provides tools for operations management, employee training, franchise lead management/generation, marketing, and more. Outside of the franchising world, it’s known more commonly as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

FranchiseSoft’s all-in-one franchise management software consists of various modules that interact and synergize with one another, pulling from common data points to reduce redundancies, improve analyses, and tighten up operations. FranchiseSoft’s franchise management software modules include:

• Franchise development
• Franchise performance
• Field service management
• Marketing
• Employee management
• Customer management
• Franchise management
• Franchise Support
• Intranet
• Franchisee onboarding
• Training
• Finance
• Surveys, and more!

If you’d like to build your general knowledge base before reading on, visit the FranchiseSoft Franchise Solutions page to learn more about each module.

Franchise Management Software Has A History Of Success

Franchise management software has been helping national brands organize and optimize for decades. Even before the internet was born, it’s been at the forefront of big business innovations. Or so the story goes…

The way the journal of Industrial Management & Data Systems tells it, ERP software was first implemented by the Siemens brand with the help of a German based software company called SAP in 1987. Impressed by the results, Dow Chemical Company developed its own ERP system the following year to “enable the complete globalization of business operations in 1988” (Yu, 2005, p. 1).

Since then, the ERP market has expanded worldwide. As global value chains became standard practice, franchise management software became a core element for anyone trying to enhance supply chain, integrate inter-company and international collaborative operations, and improve reporting. The Journal of Enterprise Information Management credited this software as being key for businesses looking to “avoid technical obsolescence and create sustainable competitive advantages” (Maditinos & Chatzoudes, 2012, p. 61). Indeed, it was no longer a question of IF your company would implement this software, but rather which you’d choose; as Yu (2005) writes, “today companies are concerned not with whether an ERP system is needed, but rather with how to establish an effective ERP system” (p. 1).

Fast-forward to 2020 and the prevailing attitudes are much the same. Whether improved marketing, training, or franchise lead management are their goals, all the top brands implement ERP software to stay competitive.

Franchise Management Systems Improve Productivity

A seminal 2012 study by the Journal of Enterprise Information Management found that ERP/franchise management systems “enhance productivity and working quality by offering integration, standardization and simplification of multiple business transactions” (Maditinos & Chatzoudes, 2012, p. 60).

We hate to say we told you so. But as we highlighted in a 2019 blog post (then once more that month for good measure), franchise management systems are the not-so-secret “secret” to operational optimization, offering your company the power to:

• Streamline or automate regular tasks. Scheduling, time tracking, accounting processes, email replies, workflow events, franchise lead management and generation, reporting, and data entry tasks can all be automated in part or in full to free up your staff for more valuable work.
• Catch time-intensive errors earlier. Monitor your franchisees performance in real-time via our intuitive dashboards and reporting processes so you can spot problems sooner. Less backtracking means more time for productivity.
• Cut out unnecessary steps (and commutes). Reduce your franchise onboarding process to a few clicks. Next time a field service worker needs sign-off on a job well-done, just upload a photo of their work for approval. Create more “telecommuting” options within your workforce. Host more productive meetings online, or eliminate them altogether by storing all necessary reference material on your private intranet server. Process client payments on the spot, whatever their preferred payment method. It’s all possible with our franchise management software.

Simplify Your Franchise Lead Management

In addition to a bevy of lead generation tools, our software gives you some major franchise lead management perks. For example:

• “Tag team” franchise lead management. Back in a 2018 article, we introduced the idea of “tag team” franchise lead management, which refers to how our software effectively lets your sales and franchise development team trade off as a point of contact for new prospects. If at any point you need to step away from your mobile device while working to close a sale, a colleague can pick up where you left off. We make it seamless with our 360-degree lead profiles, which store all correspondence and relevant information to bring the new stand-in up to speed.
• Parsing lead data for more cost-effective marketing. Our franchise lead management software puts all pertinent lead info–from their names and inquiry date down to the amount of cash they currently have available for investment–right at your fingertips in a cloud-based profile. Then we sort them automatically, parsing lead information into a lead list so you can search by specific data points. Check out your top draws and how your PPC campaign is paying off; browse by ‘available investment capital’ to see who’s got the means for your next big opportunity; or view their progress in your custom workflow to see who needs a gentle push.

Dig Deeper Into The Benefits – Book A Demo

Today’s post was all about answering one driving question: what are the benefits of franchise management software? But admittedly, while we dug deep into the research and showcased some serious value, we’ve hardly scratched the surface.

If you’d like to continue your research, visit the FranchiseSoft website. There you’ll find plenty of informative articles and module breakdowns, along with some helpful videos.

But if you’d rather skip all that and see our software in action, give us a call at 866-311-7189 to book a 100% free software demonstration.

References

Maditinos, D., Chatzoudes, D., & Tsairidis, C. (2012). Factors affecting ERP system implementation effectiveness. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 25(1): 60-78. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimitrios_Maditinos/publication/220306358_Factors_affecting_ERP_system_implementation_effectiveness/links/5678448808ae125516ee7c33.pdf

Yu, C. S. (2005). Causes influencing the effectiveness of the post‐implementation ERP system. Industrial Management & Data Systems. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chian-Son_Yu/publication/220672332_Causes_influencing_the_effectiveness_of_the_post-implementation_ERP_system/links/553eed7b0cf210c0bdaac4db/Causes-influencing-the-effectiveness-of-the-post-implementation-ERP-system.pdf