Franchises failing to leverage new tech

Entrepreneur recently shed light on one of franchising’s greatest ironies: the fact that one of the industries that could benefit most from new technologies is also one of the slowest to adopt them.

“Saying that many franchise systems are stuck in the ’90s is being kind,” Tariq Farid, founder of Edible Arrangements, told the source. “I think franchising is an amazing model, but technology is not in the comfort zone of a lot of franchise leaders. They don’t understand that the point of technology is to make life easy so franchisees can focus on growing their business, not running their business.”

An industry that is often wary of change, combined with a vendor contract environment that sometimes saddles brands with outdated systems for years at a time, has conspired to leave many franchises in the dust where technological advancement is concerned. However, Entrepreneur makes the case that this is a trend that cannot afford to continue, highlighting technological tools like fleet-management apps, digital customer-loyalty programs, cloud-based computing and many more.

Farid outlined the night and day differences technology has created in the business world.

“When I was a kid and worked at McDonald’s, they’d sit you down in front of a TV and play a tape showing you how to make the food,” Farid said. “Now we do that in real time. Before, we used to laminate training cards, and by the time we sent them, they were out of date and cost $25,000 to $30,000. Now we can update our videos or slides instantly, so it’s fresh. When a new employee goes through our training modules, they’re completely up to date.”