Does Size Matter?
The Management and team at Appliance Tagging Services don't think so. With a growing network franchisees we service major national clients such as Australia Post and have developed solid business relationships with our franchisees in the process.
The beauty of our size is that we can get to know all of our franchisees really well and therefore manage them on a personal basis - rather than just a name and a number!
We are really fortunate to have a great bunch of franchisees working with us, and as a team we have managed to overcome a few challenges by working together. Right from the beginning when our franchisees come along to induction training, they get to meet all of the team and know everyone that they will be working with. Some of our franchisees are quite remote, but we have regular contact with them by phone and email. We manage to get everyone together at our Annual Conference and this creates a sort of big family feeling. We also have smaller State-wide meetings which are extremely informal and enable the local franchisees to share information that is relative to their areas.
The way the franchise is structured, ATS tenders for large multi-site clients and manages the ongoing scheduling by allocating the work to our franchisees. In addition to this our franchisees focus on growing their local market and manage the scheduling of this work themselves. As you can imagine this requires some pretty good management and excellent communication between the scheduling team and the franchisees - something that without the right people and structure would be a real challenge for a larger organisation.
Our customers also benefit from this arrangement. Between ATS and our franchisees, we make sure we know our customers and understand their needs. We are large enough to be able to manage their requirements, but also still small enough to be able to personalise our service to them.
Yes, of course we plan to grow, but only by appointing the right people in the right places. These are the people who share our vision and philosophy, and people who are passionate about electrical safety and about making Australian workplaces safer for all employees.
Ultimately our goal is always to retain the close personal relationships that we pride ourselves on. A business is only as good as its people and we are very proud of the people within our system. We might be small, but by working together we believe that size ultimately does not matter.
This article first appeared in the January/February 2011 of Franchising Magazine.
