Franchise Consultants Cite 21st Century Quality Control Tools as the Key to Franchising

The iFranchise Group, a leading Franchise consulting firm based in the Chicago area, recently held a seminar for the franchise community that included information and guidance on how to use technology to help ensure quality control within franchise systems.

“Controlling quality and maintaining operational consistency is vitally important to the success of any franchise,” stated franchise consultant and iFranchise Group CEO, Mark Siebert. “It is the cornerstone of replicating any business model across a network of locations. That’s why franchisors continually need to find ways to provide easy access to current information to their franchisees.”

Highlights from the seminar included a discussion of best practices in the creation, maintenance, and delivery of critical documents such as confidential operations manuals and other franchise training materials.

Secure Intranet Sites for Confidential Document Storage.  Not long ago, creating online access to essential documents was cost-prohibitive to many franchise companies. But technological advances have made the cost to set-up and maintain system-wide intranets much more accessible to franchisors of all types and sizes.  And, at the same time, people on both the franchisor and franchisee side of the equation today are more comfortable with accessing critical information electronically rather than in hard copy.

Therefore, with cost and usage barriers no longer an issue, franchisors are finding that housing their confidential and mission-critical documents – such as operations manuals -- in a secure online setting provides them with a number of key advantages. Important information stored and accessed electronically can be:

• Easily searched by users for quick access to desired content
• Seamlessly linked to data, both within the document and to external source material and websites
• Kept secure through password protection and distinct access levels for different positions within the franchisee's business
• Updated inexpensively and in a timely manner, since there is no need to send out new printed information to replace outdated content

Online Training Libraries.  iFranchise Group franchise consultants and executives went on to show that conducting franchisee training through an online learning management system, both at start-up and on an ongoing basis, has similar benefits. While online training cannot completely replace in-person, hands-on training, the advantages include:

• Streamlined, cost-effective remote training sessions; ideal for material that can be recorded, archived, and delivered on an as-needed basis
• Better tracking of completed training requirements by individual employees at each franchise location
• Readily updated information to reflect the most current procedures
• Simplified synchronization of training materials with operations manuals and other documentation
• Easy integration of video and other multi-media presentations into training materials

Franchisors interested in learning more about how to create and maintain state-of-the-art quality control and training systems for their businesses are encouraged to contact iFranchise Group for more information.

About iFranchise Group
iFranchise Group is a leading franchise consulting firm that offers the skills of the nation's top professionals in franchise strategic planning, operations training and documentation, franchise marketing and sales, advertising fund management, franchise recruitment, and development of Internet-based applications for emerging and established franchise companies worldwide.