WASHINGTON DC, Feb. 9, 2011—The International Franchise Association today announced the launch of “OnTrack-Performance Benchmarking for Franchisors,” a new Web-based benchmarking tool to be officially unveiled next week at the IFA Annual Convention in Las Vegas, for IFA members to compare the performance of their franchise system to their peers.

“This new IFA member service allows franchise systems the ability to benchmark against other systems and improve performance in their own system, said IFA Chairman Ken Walker, CFE, who is also chairman and CEO of Driven Brands. “OnTrack will be an invaluable benefit of IFA membership as our members continue to focus on efficiencies and best practices moving out of the recession.”

By providing 20 key data items, members can view Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by system size, business category, total revenue, franchise investment cost, and years in franchising.  Members can also choose from a range of reports to see comparisons on franchise leads and closing costs, training/support cost per franchise unit, same store sales, net growth, EBITDA, and employee allocations. OnTrack is designed so that members can quickly and easily input key data and get back useful, relevant and timely KPIs for benchmarking purposes.  

OnTrack will include key performance indicators in five key areas for franchise businesses, including Company Snapshot, Franchise Sales, Financial Information, Employees/Operations and Business Practices.  Filters for each of these areas will compare a franchise business to peer groups by system size, business category, franchise investment cost, total revenue and years in franchising.

The web-based system allows members to choose a wide range of reports and charts, including Franchise System Report, Franchise Sales Report, Financial KPIs, Franchised Operations/Expenses Report, Franchisor Revenue Report and Employee Report.  Reports are generated in different formats and can be saved by members for use later.

“I am excited to see months of work by my colleagues on the IFA Benchmarking Task Force,  IFA staff, our consultant, and software vendor come to fruition,” said Brain Spindel, CFE, chairman of the IFA Benchmarking Task Force and president and CEO of PostNet International Franchise Corporation. “I strongly encourage IFA members to embrace this new member benefit and to start using these benchmarking tools to measure and improve system-wide performance in their companies.”    

The concept of a Web-based benchmarking platform was developed by IFA’s volunteer leadership, including IFA Chairman Ken Walker, CFE, IFA Past Chairman Mike Isakson, ServiceMaster Co. president and COO, and members of the IFA Board of Directors.  A task force of IFA members was appointed to explore ways to develop benchmarking tools that members could use to compare and improve system-wide performance.
The complete Benchmarking Task Force is listed below:

IFA and its software vendor, Dynamic Benchmarking, will be conducting webinars in the weeks ahead to introduce OnTrack and to show members how to use it. Dynamic Benchmarking was selected in July, following an IFA-published Request for Proposal (RFP) to software/Web design firms to develop a Web-based platform, with the criteria and features identified by the IFA Benchmarking Task Force.

Benchmarking Task Force Members

Brian Spindel, CFE
Chairman
President & COO
PostNet International Franchise Corporation

Mike Bidwell, CFE
President & COO
The Dwyer Group

Michael Carlet
Senior  Vice President & CFO
Driven Brands, Inc.

Todd Leff
President & CEO
Hand and Stone Massage Spa

Jerrod Sessler, CFE
CEO
HomeTask, Inc.

IFA Staff

Bue McNeely, Project Coordinator
Jason Yusko, Director, Information Systems
John Reynolds, CFE, President, IFA Educational Foundation

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About the International Franchise Association


The International Franchise Association is the world’s oldest and largest organization representing franchising worldwide. Celebrating 50 years of excellence, education and advocacy, IFA protects, enhances and promotes franchising through government relations, public relations and educational programs. Through its awareness campaign highlighting the theme,


Franchising: Building Local Businesses, One Opportunity at a Time,


IFA promotes the nearly 18 million jobs and $2.1 trillion of economic activity generated by franchising. IFA members include franchise companies in over 90 different business format categories, individual franchisees and companies that support the industry in marketing, law and business development

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