A franchise is a distinctive business model relevant to the retail industry. It’s created out of two parties namely the franchiser and the franchisee. The franchisee pays a certain license fee to the franchiser to sell goods using the latter’s brand name and business prototype. Besides, the fee also includes a certain portion of royalty sales revenue. You can opt for robust franchise management software to incorporate into your business. This software helps you to garner a decent chunk of the revenue share in the ever-flourishing retail industry. Firstly, the software assists in boosting your revenue. Secondly, it improves business management and coordination among your countrywide franchise outlets.
What is franchise management software?
It’s a collaborative platform forged between franchisers and franchisees that encourages heightened engagement between the two parties. The engagement scenarios include sales, marketing, revenue sharing, branding, inventory management, CRM, lease payment, reporting and analytics, and other aspects. Most importantly, the franchise software facilitates a steady growth of the franchisers’ business. It hires franchisees, generates leads, increases customer conversions, streamlines operations, and tracks and optimizes market performance by utilizing real-time dashboards and analytics. Moreover, the software enables well-run connectivity between different franchise sites through built-in communication tools like emails and notifications.
Before you purchase a franchise management software, know whether the features of the software complement your business needs. Here are a few relevant points that you should be mindful of while settling on software that’s just right for your business.
Choosing the exact software
For every franchiser with an elaborate network of franchise outlets, cloud-based franchise management software is more preferred. In this way, each of the outlets can feed data related to CRM, ERP, and other details into a single software platform. The integrated cloud technology also guarantees smooth-running operations and staff management. Otherwise, you can choose an on-premise franchise software if you don’t need to associate with other outlets.
Determining the compatibility aspect
It’s important that you pick a franchise management software with a variety of features such as SCM, retail POS, price control and beyond. In addition, make sure that your existing software can be seamlessly upgraded in compliance with the new one. What’s more, decide on a software that precisely takes your specific industry into consideration.
Leveraging the mobile platform
If you want to capitalize on the mobile industry boom, go for a franchise management software that consolidates standard mobile platforms like Android and iOS. Also, see to it that your mobile app has all the features which are already available in your desktop version. This would facilitate your workforce across various franchise locations to view and input data through their iOS or Android devices while on the go.
Deciding on the pricing strategy
For any franchise management software, the two available pricing options are one-time license fees and subscription-based models. While the former allows a one-time purchase of the software license, the latter entitles you to purchase the software at a monthly or yearly periodicity. Subscription-based pricing is commonly used in cloud-compatible software. On the contrary, on-premise facilities use more of a one-time license model.
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