Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

All retail franchisee owners have, at one point, been dying to have this conversation with their chain’s CIO: “Just stop talking: you’re an idiot. How can you even keep a straight face when trying to justify a $25,000+ POS system when I know I could put in a system that does everything I would need for less than $5,000?”

And the CIO in this fantasy conference call has her own dialogue: “I wish you franchisees would see the bigger picture and understand that the retail chain needs to enable technology to help us better run marketing, operations and supply chain across all stores, owned and franchised.” This begs the question: How does an IT department successfully deliver retail technology that meets the needs of both a franchisor and the chain? Both sides need to change the way they think about large-scale IT projects.

This is a lesson that shouldn’t be ignored by non-franchise chains, too, as today’s reality of Web-enabled, mobile-fueled, social-network-infested high-turnover low-margin is forcing everyone to play by very different rules or to die not trying.

I’ve spent the last 16 years trying to fight IT issues, with the last six years focused on franchisee IT issues—first running the retail technology department for Dunkin’ Brands (Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins) and now running IT for Focus Brands (Cinnabon, Carvel, Schlotzsky’s and Moe’s Southwestern Grill)—and both sides need to step back and better understand the reality of the other. In this weekly column here at StorefrontBacktalk, I’m going to try and bridge that gap as we look at all of the IT hot buttons of today, from RFID, CRM and E-Commerce to mobile, payment, PCI, self-service, kiosks and supply chain.

Imagine you are on stage in an auditorium with 3,000 different retail CEOs. Large and small, all of them are in the same industry and even the same market segment. Each one of them has different levels of experience and generally different approaches to being successful. Some have Ivy League degrees, others have learned through hard work. Some manage their business by their gut, and other’s crunch numbers a million different ways. Some of them have access to deep financial resources, and others are just scraping by. Your job is to deliver a single POS that meets all of their needs.

You start by asking them what is important in a POS strategy. You are met with a wall of sound as everyone responds with 3,000 requirements all at once. Some of the requirements contradict each other: It needs to be highly-reliable. It needs to be cheap.

From behind the curtain, there is a small mob of people whispering loudly to you. “We need access to good data.” “It has to help drive sales.” Overwhelmed, you try to outline on a whiteboard an approach that meets most of the critical needs. Each time your marker touches the board, half the audience groans: Welcome to the world of Franchise IT.

I have had the opportunity to work in a Franchise environment on several large-scale, complex retail technology projects over the years. I have to admit that these projects have been the most challenging and yet rewarding of my career. Outside of the challenges associated with typical large scale IT projects, these projects have the added challenge of having conflicting motivations between 3 distinct groups: The Franchisor Business Unit, the Franchisor IT department and the Franchisees. I have yet to run into a project where all of these organizations are in complete alignment, even when there is a rock-solid, outstanding business case that shows a quantifiable business benefit for all.