Franchising World, October 2013

BY JOSH MERIN  

 You’re a franchisor executive sitting in your office trying to prioritize resources. Where do you assign assets to grow stronger? Can you make cuts without sacrificing performance? What basis do you have to make and justify your decisions?
   FastTrack, the International Franchise Association’s new streamlined web-based benchmarking program, lets you quickly, freely and anonymously gain competitive intelligence   by measuring your company’s performance against your peers in key performance categories. In minutes you can answers questions like:  
   • How efficiently do you sell franchises?
   • Do you overstaff or understaff to support your franchisees?
   • Does increased corporate staffing equal more system-wide sales?
   • How do your units perform compared to other systems?  
   In response to feedback from franchisors unfamiliar with the potential of benchmarking, IFA created FastTrack. By answering nine questions, you can safely and anonymously gain access to FastTrack’s benchmarking data.     The questions are designed to be readily accessible for franchisors. If you like what you see, you can freely upgrade to OnTrack, IFA’s full benchmarking platform. OnTrack offers many more data points to compare and lets you filter by system size, business category, total revenue and years in franchising to draw the most useful possible results.
   Program Benefits
   IFA members who have used OnTrack feel strongly about its benefits.
   “I know of no other resource that gives me access to this type of comparative data. It simply doesn’t make sense not to participate and gain access to this tool” said The Dwyer Group Pres. & COO Mike Bidwell, CFE. “I use OnTrack as a convenient resource to check our performance relative to others. It is a useful data point in our tool bag to benchmark the more dynamic facets of our business.”
   PostNet International Franchise Corp. Pres. & COO Brian Spindel, CFE, expresses similar sentiments: “By participating in the OnTrack Benchmarking program, our management team is able to compare key metrics with other groups of franchisors. The ability to compare gives the data more meaning and allows us to focus our efforts on areas where we are underperforming. I have to say the program is one of the most powerful and meaningful IFA member benefits.”
   FastTrack and OnTrack are free   membership benefits for IFA member franchisors as part of the association’s mission to strengthen franchising. IFA’s Benchmarking Task Force, chaired by Spindel, is composed of volunteer franchisor executives and works with association staff and software vendor Dynamic Benchmarking LLC to continually improve and promote IFA’s benchmarking resources on behalf of the franchise community.   Try FastTrack and get a taste of the power of benchmarking. To get started, and begin gaining competitive intelligence in minutes, visit: 
www.franchise.org/  benchmarking.aspx.

Josh Merin is senior manager of research and strategic initiatives for the International Franchise Association. Find him at  fransocial.franchise.org   via the directory.