The success of any franchise business depends largely on the ability of the brand owner to ensure that standards are maintained and executed the way it was designed to be delivered. To ensure the consistency across the franchise system, from branding, marketing, operations, merchandising to customer service and quality of product. When left for various stakeholders to manage, the effectiveness of the franchise system comes under pressure as different people have differing views of standards.

Audits are one way to maintain standards to ensure operations quality across the franchise system. Audit initiatives need to be properly planned, communicated, and executed so as to gain support from everyone in the franchise ecosystem. Regular and consistent audits are relevant to everyone in the ecosystem from franchisors, store managers to their Master franchisees and eventually their sub franchisees. Using franchise management technology can help the Franchise owner develop audit programs to help monitor, maintain standards across the various operational functions of the business and ensure the over brand equity is protected. TreeAMS is one such system that allows the franchise owner to develop and assess audits across various functions and implemented across all business units in various locations. Beyond Audits, TreeAMS is also designed to help Franchisors manage the various aspects of franchise operations excellence from SOP management, Training, Franchisee Onboarding to network performance reporting.

Developing the Audit Program

As with most initiatives, a well-designed plan and approach are a necessity for any audit program to be successful. There are three distinct steps with any audit program.

• First, creating a detailed outline of the procedures that will be followed from candidate selection to the physical site-visit of the selected franchisees.
• Second, the actual performance of an examination.
• Third, documenting the audit and enforcing its findings.

An audit program should be created in a methodical step-by-step process to ensure consistency in application. The program should also be tailored to address the unique needs and characteristics of a concept. Whether your concept is built on retail sales, education, food and beverage or providing a specialized service, the audit steps should address your needs.

 

What to Audit

Typically, the franchise owner would want to audit areas of financial compliance, operational compliance, brand management and customer service. Most of these audits can be extracted from the business’ Standard Operational Procedures. For Financial compliance, this can be checked against other balancing factors like inventory, cost of goods and number of customers served amongst many other key factors that reflect revenue.

Another form of audit is to ensure new employees are properly on-boarded and trained.

Conducting the Audit

In the case of a formal audit, after the audit program has been designed, and the notices sent, the people involved in the audit should be given a limited amount of time to prepare for the audit.

There are cases where audits are done randomly to achieve relevant outcomes. However, for this to be relevant, it is important that the people involved in the audit have been previously trained and educated on what expected standards are. Without training, the audits will only reflect the results but not whether the individuals are responsible for the outcome

After the Audit

After the audit is completed and the results analyzed, instances of non-compliance or falling short of expectations need to be addressed promptly. A audit system that leverages technology will help to generate reports that facilitate quicker synthesis of the audit outcomes that help Franchisors make relevant and timely decisions for their franchise system. Taking the relevant actions regarding all aspects of the audit will allow the franchise owner a chance to correct and fill the gaps uncovered.

How well new training programs, operational performance, new workflows or financial reporting processes are implemented and maintained by the franchise organisation can be revealed in these audits programs.

Franchisors and franchise managers can use the reports generated to then conduct insightful franchise operations performance meetings with their franchisees to gain better coaching outcomes.

TreeAMS audit management feature also helps the franchisors, franchise managers and franchisees track their performance over time and can positively impact overall franchisee performance.