Franchise Council of Australia: Good to Great

The theme of the 2006 National Convention for the Franchise Council of Australia is “Good to Great”.

We intend to create a conference program that genuinely delivers against this theme seeking the best people to present on the topics most relevant to the franchising community. We will be seeking to extract from existing members of our franchising community who have demonstrated “greatness” in their activities, but we are also seeking great people from outside the normal franchising networks with important messages for our delegates.

It is only natural that when we send out expressions of interest to present at the conference we receive a substantial number of candidates from the service provider sector. To make our Good to Great conference a success however we need to expand upon the range of expert presenters. Accordingly, we are looking for our franchisor members to advise us:-

1) of any organisations they consider to be great in an area of practice or business, or have taken their business from Good to Great. Self-nomination is permissible, but we would like franchisors to nominate other parties as well;

2) details of any speakers that franchisors have had at their conferences that have impressed them in terms of the “Good to Great” theme;

3) any members of the business community or famous Australians that they would love to hear present at our National Conference.

As the conference is in Melbourne we can expect high levels of participation, particularly as we have regularly been achieving over 150 people attending our breakfasts. However, the focus of the program committee is on delivering a conference program that honours the “Good to Great” theme, and ensures the content of the conference program is the best ever produced.

Exciting insurance initiative

At the November board meeting at the Franchise Council of Australia the board of directors gave the green light to proceed with the establishment of FCA Insurances, a company designed to make available to the franchise sector a wide range of insurance products that are not only tailor-made to the requirements of the sector, but carry premiums that are dramatically lower than those currently available to franchisors and franchisees.

This is probably the most exciting new initiative that we have introduced for many years. It has the potential to provide massive benefits for all members of the franchising community. In addition it can help us create an industry body that has the resources to take sector representation and influence to an even greater level.

The FCA management team has been working on this initiative for over 12 months. The intention in creating our own insurance company is to genuinely leverage from the combined purchasing power of our $80 billion sector in a way that has never happened before either in Australia or indeed internationally.

This initiative is not simply an aggregation program; it involves the establishment of a stand alone insurance company solely focused on servicing the needs of the franchise sector. As such franchisor and franchisee members can look forward to insurance policies that are properly tailored to the needs of the franchising community, at premiums that reflect the aggregated dying power of the sector. For too long insurance companies have been able to separate our community and extract margins that do not reflect the genuine risk at an industry or an individual business level.

Your board has only embarked upon this project after being satisfied that the establishment of FCA Insurances will deliver insurance products that are substantially better and lower priced than those currently available. Initial work to date is targeting a saving of 25 percent on current premiums, which I believe all would agree to be substantial. Furthermore, as we develop our own industry information on risk and claims we would be better placed for the future to understand the levels of genuine risk. This should help to drive premiums even lower.

The plan is for FCA Insurances to be launched in April 2006. We still need to formalise arrangements, and we will be continuing our due diligence, market research, policy design, staff recruitment and other activities necessary to give effect to this new business.

In early 2006, you will find representatives of FCA Insurances contacting you to discuss your insurance requirements and begin to implement the new business initiative. We would appreciate your support of this initiative by comparing the current policies, benefits and premiums and having this information readily available when our FCA Insurance representatives call. In this way it will be much easier for you to immediately see the extent of savings possible.

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