Zoho for Franchising

The business world has changed throughout the world. India is no exception. There is enough funding available for innovation-based start-ups, and the number of unicorns that have come up in the past few years is a testimony to that.

Recently, I came across a second-generation entrepreneur. Their family has been in the catering industry for more than 20 years. At an event, I had the opportunity to taste one of their products, masala chai. I was totally impressed with its quality. They had also opened a kiosk-type outlet for the same, and it has been doing tremendously well. Of course, money follows quality. When I spoke with the founder, a young entrepreneur with a very common-sense approach to running his business, I learned that he wanted to scale his outlet through a franchise model. You may be thinking, "Yet another chai chain?"But I was completely convinced that given their quality and consistency, as well as their focus on the lower and middle classes, they could easily win.

Yes. There is a huge segment of small businesses that have been doing reasonably well for a significant amount of time and yet have been relatively disconnected with the market for risk capital. It is time that the funding ecosystem see the potential in those high-quality, small-scale products and services. Once the funding ecosystem starts looking at that segment, and once the new generation enters business and the conventional entrepreneur starts gaining knowledge about the funding options available and becomes open to accessing them, then it is only a matter of time before these high-quality local businesses scale.

That, I think, is the sweet spot for the growth of the economy in an equitable, decentralized, and fair manner. With increasing public awareness, I hope that such a transformation will occur quickly.Imagine: there is problem-solution fit, and product-market fit has also been established for several years. These are the stages in which several start-ups fail. Having crossed those, the chances of success for this segment can be better than a conventional start-up.

In such an environment, India can be home to a significant number of robust, homegrown franchises. Remember, in the business format of franchising, the business operating system, along with the product and the brand, are what the franchisee is willing to pay for. Products from companies like Zoho can be of enormous significance to these kinds of franchises.

Let's take the case of the same masala chai franchise and see in what way an ERP system based on Zoho can help them manage the show.

• The Zoho inventory management system can play a significant role in providing inventory-related information across the system in a seamless manner. Right from basic stock information to advanced analytics, it can provide valuable information across the system that can improve decision-making drastically.

• A Zoho CRM can be of enormous value in terms of managing B2B orders like marriage orders, etc. Of course, expanding the boundary outside the franchise outlet can have its own challenges. But a well-connected, robust system can help address these

• Zoho Books can be extremely useful in managing the complete books end-to-end with very minimal manual reconciliation requirements. If you choose the right banker who has good reconciliation integrations with Zoho, it can eliminate a lot of non-value-added work.

• Zoho Desk can create a proper channel to address the issues raised by the franchisees. You can create an environment where you can support your franchisee to the maximum possible extent. In the game of franchising, the franchisee’s success is your success.

• Also, you can have advanced marketing systems with microtargeting capabilities for both B2B and B2C segments.

• A social media-based consumer engagement system can significantly strengthen the brand.

• Zoho has an AI-based remote support system. Such a system will be a boon for providing service support.

• Using Zoho Creator, you can create applications to audit the franchise operations. Remember, the stronger the audit system, the better the consistency of your product or service. Even better – Create an end-to-end franchise management app through Zoho creator itself. It can provide a much more integrated experience

A few years back, these were not possible. Information control is one of the most important forms of control, and franchising is based on it. However, the ability to build an integrated information management system across functions iteratively was simply not there, and it was a significant barrier to franchise-based scaling.Today, it is possible to configure and implement such a system at scale within a short span of time.

I am eagerly awaiting the day when small-scale entrepreneurs will have the mindset to try out equity funding and show results. With the SaaS product revolution at its peak, today is the right moment for the same. Our economy will benefit from stronger SMEs.

About the Author

SN PALANIAPPAN

Alumni, IIM, Bangalore; Co-Founder, StratWorks Consulting LLP; Zoho Implementation Partner.

His consulting firm, StratWorks Consulting LLP, specialises in SME consulting and has been involved in the design and implementation of multiple ERP systems across several industries, including trading, manufacturing, FMCG, food retail, IT, etc. The author can be reached at can be reached at palani@strat-works.com, LinkedIn ID.

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