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How one food franchise is making life easier for franchisees

Sarah Stowe

Keen to buy a food franchise but wary of the ongoing costs? One franchised business has been set up from the start to reduce the wage bill through systemising its processes.

Hombre Mexican Street Food has also turned to the Cloud to improve efficiencies and give the franchisee more free time.

A former franchisee himself, director Alistair Bye explains “There’s not one touch point for the franchisee which is not fully cloud-based”.

Franchisees are given their own Google account which links them to the information shared through the calendar and various folders, allowing them to view live documents on which head office staff are working.

The advantage for the franchisor and franchisee is that regular updates on technology are easily incorporated into the system.

“Our business partners are working on developments so we’re getting all the development without the investment. We don’t have to take off so much money from the franchisee in the first place,” Bye reveals.

Franchisors can charge 12 percent combined franchise and marketing fees, particularly in fast food environments but the costs are much lower at Hombre, he says.

How to cut costs and free up your time

“By focusing on digital we’re able to capture our own customer data and contacts at Point of Sale and communicate at a low cost.”

Typical fees are eight percent (five for the franchise fee, three for the marketing levy) at Hombre.

But on top of the costs, there is a saving on admin time and increased visibility and control of the franchisee’s business.

Franchisees can say farewell to Excel sheets – an integrated Cloud system calculates GST and connects to bookkeeping software.

It’s useful too for franchisees and staff to manage shifts. Employees can access and self-manage their rosters, cutting back considerably on the franchisee’s time managing this.

Integrated systems

“A lot of food franchisees have got a bookkeeper to do their books because they are either exhausted or find aspects of the bookkeeping too complex to do.

“Now a fully integrated PoS and payroll means an accountant can show them how to do it in an hour or two,” says Bye.

“I was quite passionate, having been a multi-site franchisee, that we could give a single site franchisee some lifestyle.”

The financial modelling for the franchise has addressed issues such as rent, cost of goods and wages. From the very beginning the business was structured to be systemised and highly efficient.

For instance, when the oven is installed in the franchise outlet it takes a pre-programmed USB stick which loads all the Hombre programs, allowing for fresh grilling and cooking but in a systemised rather than manual process.

Bye is confident even with a fully licensed bar that a franchise outlet can be run with 25 percent fewer employees than in a comparable franchise model.