Franchise Corporation Streamlines Onboarding and Site Inspections

Franchise corporation streamlines onboarding and site inspections

Corporate branding and operational compliance are key components of any organization. For enterprises operating in a franchise model, it’s even more critical that corporate offices are regularly evaluating brand and operational compliance across markets, sites, and franchise owners. The corporate office for one national franchise was completing handwriting site inspections for their franchise locations and reporting their findings back, which required manual re-entry into their outdated system. They turned to Stoneridge Software to deploy a solution that would streamline their processes and make franchise site inspections quicker, easier, and more efficient.

Stoneridge Software recommended using Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement solutions, which would allow employees to be empowered to seamlessly capture field compliance data, track important franchisee information, and obtain a complete, 360-degree view of their partners – all in Dynamics 365, accessed from anywhere at any time.

Faster Franchise Onboarding

For this client, onboarding a new franchisee is a process that takes a minimum of six to eight months but can last up to a year. The corporate office faced mounting frustrations managing the onboarding process because it incorporated every department and internal communication processes, and handoff points weren’t defined. Leaders felt they were alienating their franchisees with out-of-sync and conflicting communication coming from so many different contacts within the corporate organization.

By implementing Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, they were able to define their onboarding process and develop a central location for task management and process handoffs.

Visibility Across Departments

Now each department at the corporate level – accounting, legal, marketing, training, facilities, and purchasing – has access to dashboards that display percentages of completed tasks for individual franchisees. A standard business process flow is launched when a potential franchisee sends in an inquiry. A notification is automatically generated for the first department involved. As tasks are completed, they are marked in Customer Engagement and a new notification is sent to the next department along with the tasks they need to complete before the process can move on to the next department.

This ensures each department is aware of where every franchisee is in the onboarding process, what communication has been sent, and what steps remain to be completed.

In an upcoming phase two of this project, the company plans on implementing a document management system that will integrate with the process flow and allow every document related to the onboarding to be stored on the franchisee’s account within Dynamics 365.

Site Inspections and Facility Reviews

Using mobile devices, site inspectors visit franchise sites and complete their inspection forms electronically. The custom form outlines requirements for branding, store layout, and other franchise mandates to facilitate measuring and reporting compliance alignment and violations. While on-site, the field operations team has access to historical data about the specific location. This allows the user to view any prior issues and assure they have been addressed and are now in compliance.

This specific franchise organization has a point system in place for compliance violations. Each item out of compliance results in a certain number of points being docked from the total score. Once that number reaches a certain level, a violation is issued. Violations hinder franchisees from attending certain corporate events, attaining product discounts, and can prohibit them from developing new franchises in other national markets. Because the violations are such a serious issue, each site inspector is required to take photos of each item that is in, or out of, compliance. Those images can be tracked and accessed within Dynamics 365.

Franchise Relocations

Like the onboarding process, there are steps that need to take place when a franchisee would like to open or move to a new location. Additional dashboards and business process flows were created to guide each involved corporate department along with the required steps to approving or denying a new location. Additionally, both existing and new franchise sites were integrated into advanced mapping and site locator tools for both franchisees and end customers to leverage.

Reporting

With advanced reporting capabilities, the corporate home office is able to quickly compile and better analyze data across sites, operators, and markets. Each department has instant access to critical, real-time information that drives process optimization and overall franchise quality. This allows the team to process franchise renewals faster, better understand underserved markets and plan for expansion, assess their projected sales, and much more.

By implementing Dynamics 365, this national franchise corporation was able to streamline their processes, eliminate manual data re-entry, and gain better visibility into their franchisee data.

Benefits included:

  • Elimination of manual processes
  • Consolidated communications
  • Task management
  • Process automation and workflows
  • Mobile capabilities
  • Advanced reporting

Have Any Questions?

More Successful Stories:

8.22.23

Unified Dynamics 365 Solutions Help International Drilling Equipment Drill Deeper and Work Harder

Started in 2007 with just two employees, International Drilling Equipment began as a distributor of top-quality Casagrande foundation equipment. They […]

Read the Article
10.7.21

Wright Asphalt Transitions from On-premise Solution to Cloud-based Dynamics 365 Business Central

For nearly 70 years, Wright Asphalt has stood out among its peers in the construction industry as a leader in […]

Read the Article
9.29.21

Upgrade from Dynamics NAV to D365 Business Central Advances Business Vision for North Carolina League of Municipalities (NCLM)

For over a century, the North Carolina League of Municipalities (NCLM) has represented the interests of towns and cities across […]

Read the Article
6.30.21

Agfinity Embraces CRM Upgrade to Supercharge Sales Process, Increase Productivity

Even the most robust software can fail an organization if it isn’t personalized and implemented properly. This was the challenge […]

Read the Article
6.18.21

Creedence Energy Chooses Dynamics 365 Business Central to Keep Pace with Rapid Growth

Creedence Energy Services, LLC is a rapidly growing chemical company in the oil and gas industry. Headquartered in Williston, ND, […]

Read the Article
4.23.21

Electrical Power Maintenance Company Poised for Growth With Dynamics 365 Business Central

After several successful acquisitions, a growing electrical power maintenance company found themselves with 6 different siloed ERP systems ranging from […]

Read the Article
3.24.21

Midwest Rubber Aligns Future Business Goals with Dynamics 365 Business Central as Foundation for Operations

As Midwest Rubber expanded over the years, the leadership team found themselves with multiple Made2Manage ERP systems making it difficult […]

Read the Article
3.19.21

Landscape Structures, Inc. Transforms Company Operations Utilizing Host of Microsoft Technologies

Landscape Structures, Inc. (LSI)  is an employee-owned, commercial playground design and manufacturing company located in Delano, MN. All design, engineering, […]

Read the Article
3.4.21

Mobile Apps Keep City Employees and Community Connected and Informed

Mobile Apps Keep City Employees and Community Connected and Informed City officials were struggling to find ways to keep their […]

Read the Article

Start the Conversation

It’s our mission to help clients win. We’d love to talk to you about the right business solutions to help you achieve your goals.