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Franchisees See Retail Chain CIOs As Being Out Of Touch With Reality
Everybody loves Raymond, not you. Remember that everyone has different motivations behind this project and it is highly unlikely that the project will satisfy all of the needs. Be prepared to say “I’m sorry, but the new system will not be delivering that functionality, at least in this phase.” Just because you don’t make everyone happy, doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. It can be easy for that to be lost in the fray.
You can tell me what to do, or how to do it, but not both. Determine up-front if you will be implementing a single vendor strategy or selecting multiple vendors that Franchisees can choose from. You also need to determine if the technology will be required, recommended or optional. These two decisions will have the greatest impact on the project structure. As a general rule, Franchisees want choice and IT people want standards. If you are going to be requiring a new single-source vendor, the entire organization had better be prepared for a significant amount of pushback.
You buy, I’ll fly. Determine, document and communicate up-front expectations about who is paying for what between the Franchisor and Franchisee. If the Franchisor is going to pay for the test or subsidize certain components of the system once it is live, communicate that information to Franchisees early.
My Mom doesn’t understand what I do for a living. If you are going to be “selling” the project to Franchisees, have someone from Marketing or Communications help you write your communications. Poorly communicated project information containing too much technical jargon or details will turn off Franchisees, regardless of how good the approach is. Don’t let your pride stand in the way of a successful project.
Deliver. At the end of the day, you are only as good as your last project. The old addage of under-promise and over-deliver should be followed. And remember that nothing succeeds like success. If you start to consistently deliver quality strategies, the easier it is the next time around.
As with most things in life, the effectiveness of the suggestions above “depends” on the environment. But I am confident that the more of these that you can implement as part of your Franchisor IT projects, the more chance of success.
-Marc
August 13th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Very interesting insights here on the tussle between the large retailer and the franchisee. Down the memory lane it was almost a deja vu moment.
The large retail CIO has to think like an entrepreneur to make it work internally as well as with his partners. We completed that journey a couple of years back by choosing some of the franchisees as the champions (the MIT types) who made life easy.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Hey Todd you are really funny. I am the following type of franchisee:
There will likely be a small group of franchisees that constantly remind you about the failed project that happened 10 years ago. Even though you were not involved, they have not forgotten or forgiven the money and the time that the rogue project cost them all of those years ago. Be nice to these “your grandfather used to cheat at poker” people.
The reason we won’t let you forget is because we do not want to go through that hell again. You really should work in the store on a Saturday night when the POS goes down during the peak hour. Your two options are to serve customers or get on the phone with the help desk and tell them the BIOS settings. Try doing this with two stores at the same time for months on end.
I could care less if the POS system does my employee schedule or inventory. The first and foremost feature it should have is to subtotal the customer’s purchase, add sales tax, and open the drawer. If it does not do this, then you fail.
The POS system should be tested until fails in the home office before being rolled out to 2,000 stores. Once it fails in the stores and the help desk is overwhelmed, then we are back to using adding machines. The $10,000 POS system is then a very expensive paperweight.
The true shame of the whole “rogue project” is that we lost numerous customers that did not want to wait in line and gave our competition a foot hold in the market.
CALL ME SOMETIME. I WOULD LOVE TO TALK SHOP WITH YOU.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
John,
Great comment! You have given me a great idea for an article: “A Franchisees Guide To Working With Their 4th CIO in 10 Years”.
I love your point that the Franchisee is just trying to make sure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated (“The last 3 people failed at this, why are we trying again????”) and how the basics like reliability need to come before bells and whistles (“I don’t care if the car can parallel park itself if it tends to breakdown in the middle of rush-hour”)
At the end of the day, as long as both sides realize and respect that the other is trying to do the right thing, that is success.
Thanks again!