Franchisors and franchisees have access to enormous amounts of valuable information. More often than not, critical data is either collected but left unexplored or not collected and lost in the wind.

In today’s highly competitive, unforgiving business environment, franchise management teams are charged with the responsibility of embracing data-analytic thinking and weaving it’s power into the fabric of their franchise system with the same energy and devotion they have for developing their “brand”.

franalytics helps franchise management teams embrace data-analytic thinking and create an environment in which data science, its practitioners, franchisees, their customers, and the franchise system can thrive and prosper in a 21st century marketplace.

Avoiding Franchise Oblivion

Ever since Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s, the battle-cry of the franchisor has been, “the brand!, the brand!, the brand!” And, rightfully so!

Radio Shack, Borders, Sears, Kmart, and JC Penny, once dominant national brands, have fallen by the wayside. Why? A failure to embrace the 21st century call-to-arms, “data!, data!, data!”.

Domino’s, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are 21st century global brands that lead by using data as a battering ram to open new market opportunities and dominate the competition.

In today’s marketplace, the “brand” and “data” are inextricably joined. Without a firm commitment to fully leveraging its data (in all its many forms), a franchise brand cannot grow, prosper, or survive.

How do you bring franchising and data analytics together? franalytics!

The “Moneyball” Lesson: Data changes the game!

In their book, Cutting-Edge Marketing Analytics, the authors share how data-analytic thinking turned a small-market, low budget baseball franchise like the Oakland A’s into perennial competitors.

“The movie Moneyball  (starring Brad Pitt) has a lot to teach us about optimizing a company’s marketing mix.  In the movie, the management of the Oakland Athletics discovers that the baseball team can get ahead by changing its perspective and looking at data differently than its competitors.

The A’s know most major-league teams use batting average… as the prevailing metric for determining the worth of a hitter…  But by examining the outcome of decades of baseball games, the A’s find a variable they believe to be more predictive of success.  It’s not only hits that help a baseball team win; walks count too.  Getting on base and not making outs is more closely correlated with winning than hits alone.

The team’s management takes the analysis of the data and uses it to buy undervalued players – players… who have high on-base percentages.  [T]his strategy changes the game.

Moneyball is about baseball, but the idea also works in the context of business marketing. Although management often makes assumptions, by actually analyzing the data, a business can better understand how to succeed.  And if a business can find an important variable before others begin using it, management can build its strategy around that variable to gain an advantage.”

franalytics can help franchise management think like the Oakland A’s.  But, we can’t make you look like Brad Pitt.  Sorry!