Franchising World February 2011

By: Brian Spindel, CFE 


At the Annual Convention, Feb. 13-16, in Las Vegas, the International Franchise Association will introduce OnTrack–Performance Benchmarking for Franchisors, a Web-based benchmarking tool for IFA members. As chairman of the IFA Benchmarking Task Force, I am excited to see months of work by my colleagues on the task force, staff, our consultant and   software vendor come to fruition. This new IFA member service provides franchise systems the ability to benchmark   against other systems and improve performance in their own systems. I believe OnTrack will be an invaluable benefit of IFA membership moving into the future. 
OnTrack has been chosen to power IFA’s benchmarking system. OnTrack is a Web-based platform that allows members to compare the performance of their franchise system to their peers. 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. 
IFA and our software vendor Dynamic Benchmarking will be conducting webinars in the weeks ahead to introduce OnTrack and to show members how to use it. We will also be presenting a not-to-be-missed session during the IFA Annual Convention.  
   In brief, here’s how OnTrack works–
   • Visit the OnTrack Web site to setup your account.
   • Complete a data worksheet to assist in collecting key data or going directly to the Web-based tool.
   • Enter data to see KPIs in five areas: Company Snapshot, Franchise Sales, Financial Information, Employees/Operations and Business Practices.
   • Select filters for each of these areas to compare to peer groups by system size, business category, franchise investment cost, total revenue and years in   franchising.    
   • 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.   
The concept of a Web-based benchmarking platform was developed by IFA’s volunteer leadership, including IFA Chairman Ken Walker, CFE, (Driven Brands chairman and CEO), 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. See the list of Benchmarking Task Force members, right.   
Task force members shared data from their companies and identified the key metrics that would provide the most meaningful, useful KPIs for franchisors. They also discussed sources of data, time required for gathering data from different departments and functions, and ways to decrease the time requirements as much as possible. Members evaluated a number of benchmarking software programs and Web-based tools to identify those that could be tailored to fit the way franchise systems operate. 
In July, IFA published a request for proposal to software/Web design firms to develop a Web-based platform, with the criteria and features identified by the task force members. Following a review, the task force selected the firm Dynamic Benchmarking. 
Task force members worked with Dynamic Benchmarking to design and test the interim release of OnTrack. In addition to the task force members, other     IFA members volunteered to participate in the interim release to provide additional feedback. In January, the pilot group was expanded to include additional IFA members for the final test and feedback prior to launching the new service at IFA’s Annual Convention. 
I strongly encourage you to embrace this new IFA member benefit and to get “OnTrack” with IFA’s new service and start using these benchmarking tools to measure and improve system-wide performance in your company. 
Brian Spindel, CFE, is president and chief operating oÿcer of PostNet International Franchise Corporation. He can be reached at 720-240-5801 or 

spin@postnet.com