What is a 360-degree view, anyway?
Posted on 13. Feb, 2010 by Clint in Cloud Computing, Franchise Technology, Franchising, Management Philosophy
Like most companies in most industries, franchisors have plenty of moving parts and pieces in their business. For instance, there are potential franchise candidates to evaluate, real estate to analyze, franchisees to train, and franchisees to support; not to mention all of the franchise contracts, leases, and disclosure requirements to keep tabs on. Many franchisors tout ” proven systems” as a main selling point or advantage to becoming a franchisee, however a quick look under the hood would reveal that many franchisors don’t have their own internal processes sorted out. This problem is not inherently unique to franchisors, as it’s a commonly recurring issue across most industries, but we’re going to focus on franchising here.
Potential reasons why basic internal processes are not adopted include the following:
- Lack of understanding of what the process should be.
- Lack of discipline to consistently execute.
- An inadequate workforce.
- No priority given to developing processes.
- Lack of tools to properly manage processes.
- Lack of defined KPI’s and ability to measure them.
The first four reasons listed above could each be examined in excruciating detail, but let’s focus on the last two. Building an effective and profitable system of managing a franchise organization means that the people in the organization need access to a lot of data. And they need it fast. You’ve heard the saying, “don’t take a knife to a gunfight”, right? Well, continuing to operate from Outlook and spreadsheets makes you a knife-wielding fighter (and it’s a rusty pocket-knife, at that). With the emergence of cloud-computing technologies and sophisticated yet user-friendly CRM solutions, you can now afford that gun.
The 360° View
There’s no doubt that by the time one of your franchisees opens the doors of their business they have been through a great deal of interaction with the people in your organization. They interacted with your sales department, they spent time with your pre-opening staff, training department, and operations team. They were also on the admin/legal department’s radar.
A 360° view would give you the ability to look back over the course of this life-cycle and view all interactions with the franchisee from the day they first entered your sales team’s pipeline and extending forward up until the day they exit your system. Having key information available in a single view such as: how and when they entered your pipeline; all communication with the sales team; records of all signed contracts; real estate leases, site developement projects, training records, support issues and communications, unit performance history; and so forth is an invaluable tool in developing a high-performing franchise organization.
Understanding when and where the organization has touch points with prospective franchisees and existing franchisees allows the franchisor’s leadership team to develop measurable goals, objectives, and strategies for each point of contact that you have. Once these goals are in place an organization can begin to measure, benchmark, and improve. Continuous improvement is a core philosophical belief of The Flywheel Group, as the silver bullet doesn’t exist. And without a system, a set of measurable KPI’s, a way to measure them, and a competent team of people to execute, well, then improvement is really just anecdotal.
Learn more about a solution that may be right for your organization:
