Franchise management software is considered the middle ground where interaction and collaboration take place between franchisors and franchisees. It provides assistance to amplify the level of engagement between the two basic franchise parties in connection with a large number of business aspects, for example, sales, marketing, operations, branding, reporting, CRM, and inventory and supply chain management. In essence, franchise management software sets up business-specific rules, regulations, and processes after being mutually agreed upon by the two parties. Franchise management software enables franchisors to keep track of performance depending on real-time reporting and analytics. The software also lets franchisors be in charge of franchisees, and record and preserve market trends through data collection for the purpose of benchmarking and future analysis. On the contrary, franchisees can utilize the software’s capabilities to bring about automation to business operations, monitor business performance, and furnish reports as demanded by their franchisor.

Read on to gain an understanding of problems that franchise management software can solve.

The type of franchise management software ranges from basic retail software supplied by multiple vendors to advanced solutions underpinned with the necessary support from multiple site locations and franchise holders. The design of franchise management software is conceived to address the following problems.

1. Manual workflow and cumbersome administration

This problem is resolved through workflow automation as well as systematic, simplified administration. When workflows are automated by franchise management software, it’s possible for you to convert time-consuming, repetitive, low-value jobs into smooth, free-flowing operations. This allows your team to put more focus on core, top-priority tasks. Franchise management software enables you to set up a comprehensive workflow substructure where processes can be mapped, triggers can be activated for automatic transmission and registration of communications with employees and customers, pendency in the completion of activities can be followed up, the standard routine of activities can be drawn up, and the process of performance measurement can be streamlined. With workflow automation in place, administrative duties for the franchise network can be made easier too.

2. Disorganized supply chain management and inventory levels not up-to-date

Franchise management software brings about total supply chain optimization. It allows franchisors to obtain visibility of stocks in inventory and supply chains at the corporate level. The software also comes up with tools to make prompt responses to customer demands. The placement of orders can be made on the basis of the minimum and maximum inventory levels following which the supplier chain can be contacted. On the other side, individual franchisees can find the availability of stock replenishment information thereby getting a complete picture of the supply status. Everyone linked with the franchise chain can gain full awareness of the goings-on and the number of products in store so that any potential shortages or blowouts can be averted.

3. Stumbling blocks over efforts to increase sales

With accompanying franchise management software, your sales will likely increase as the software contributes significantly to getting hold of customers and developing long-lasting customer relations. Even though, the onus lies on franchisees/franchise owners to put forward excellent service and ensure a great customer experience inside the franchise outlet, having good software by your side can help in driving more customers to the outlets. Franchise management software comes up with an impressive line-up of tools with the primary aim to retain customers. These tools include the following:

• Targeted discounts

• Loyalty discounts

• Sales promoting tools

• Gift cards and coupons

• Customer tracking mechanisms

• Credit tracking across franchise outlets

To cut a long story short, when you’ve got franchise management software under your control, with increased sales in every outlet, the revenue earnings for all involved parties will also increase.

4. Poor and ineffectual franchise marketing endeavors

Each franchise/franchise owner should be given the opportunity to plan and execute their marketing strategies on a limited scale. In doing so, each franchise owner comes to have enough freedom and flexibility. With franchise management software in attendance, you can keep track of, approve, and make all marketing campaigns better, and that too in real-time. Unique marketing ideas put forward by franchise owners can be disseminated over the whole franchise network and given the nod by the head office for implementation and surveillance of the results. It’s imperative that you find out the sources of your leads as to how they got to know about your brand and contacted you. The source can be a referral, paid campaigns, social media, etc. Franchise management software allows you to determine the number of leads you garnered from each of the promotional channels and draw a comparison of the finding with the total expenses paid out over each of these channels. When franchise management software is integrated with a CRM system, the franchisee acquires the ability to add more leads directly from brokers or franchise portals.

5. Frequent in-person franchise inspections, lead to lots of conflicts and bad blood

It’s the responsibility of the headquarters to keep a watch on the franchise outlets in real-time, identify potential concern areas and make them known, and set the seal on finalizing sales and management goals to get to the bottom of any issues and resolve them. all these actions can be seamlessly handled by franchise management software. In order to detect problems early, making use of historical data is crucial which franchise management software can store and provide access after that. As a consequence, real in-person inspections can be carried out faster without many regularities.

6. No data synchronization

If you access non-synchronized data from multiple devices and accounts it can lead to disastrous consequences with your franchise operations going haywire. That’s why franchise management software is resorted to for providing uniform access to properly synchronized data regardless of the accounts and devices. Since the majority of franchise management software solutions are developed on the foundation of cloud computing technology, they facilitate data access from all kinds of smartphones and tablets. In addition, the software works offline as well so that data sync-up can happen when the connection to the internet is re-established.

7. Problems related to integration with other software

It’s imperative for franchisors to keep an eye on the courses of action that are being followed once a franchisee is awarded the operations of their proprietary business. This necessitates smooth integration of your CRM with all the following stages involved in a typical franchise lifecycle. Franchise management software ensures this is done without a hitch. A tenable integration feature also renders cogent APIs to be used for sending and receiving data that will be used externally and somewhere else. Franchise management software also comes up with an in-built digital signature. It offers smooth integration with other entities such as accounting software like QuickBooks and various payment gateways.

8. Unavailability of reporting and analytics

It’s important to keep franchise owners well informed about whether they’re winning over their right target audience base, mastering the ability to transform qualified leads into moneymaking opportunities, and realizing the successful closure of deals. Franchise management software has the competence to fulfill all these objectives. In addition, franchise management helps provide valuable insights into whether the franchise business is doing well or meeting financial goals. If not, it also helps pinpoint areas that need improvement. This is possible because the software can incorporate a robust business intelligence tool which in turn can pull resources from the franchise CRM framework to ensure tracking and sharing reports in real-time both locally and across all franchise locations is made feasible.

9. No consistency in keeping brand image intact

Franchise management software takes full charge of making your franchise brandable. It contributes significantly to delivering a stable brand image. The primary software interface is generally brought into being to communicate information related to products and/or services to the entire franchise chain. It helps prevent different franchise outlets spread across several locations to post inappropriate content. It makes sure only the head office is assigned the authority to create brand image-building templates and distribute them to franchisees. Later, the templates can be customized by franchisees as per their unique business needs and preferences.

10. Lack of training

As far as franchises are concerned, for them to expand and outsmart the competition, imparting proper training to employees and franchisees is compulsory. Once you have recourse to franchise management software, its powerfully built and thoroughly informative learning management system puts forward multiple training modules. The software is able to create a specialized knowledge base in the form of training courses by putting videos and other multimedia forms to maximal use. It offers a significant competitive advantage. In addition, franchise management software is designed to train franchisees to augment their knowledge intake and work on skill deficiencies.

11. Absence of any Point Of Sale (POS) systems

When it comes to franchising and other service-based businesses, POS systems hold considerable importance. This is because they provide the gateway through which money pours in. Franchise management software is preferred in this respect as it can be easily configured and offers support to wide-ranging physical interfacers such as Android, iOS, Windows, and dedicated POS registers.