According to reports, an estimated 792,000 franchise establishments in the United States have an economic output of roughly $827 billion and 8.5 million employees working. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 20% of independent businesses close after two years, while 92% of franchisees are still going strong after the same timeframe.
These numbers suggest unstoppable growth in franchising, which may lead to a growing competitive space among franchise owners. With this head-to-head battle, franchisors are looking for ways to stand out, such as relying on improved technologies to streamline operations, improve overall production, and stay ahead of the curve.
An eCommerce platform specifically dedicated to B2B is one of the ways to help franchise owners grow and scale their business and achieve outstanding results. Arnaud Rihiant, CEO of B2B eCommerce platform DJUST, shares three reasons franchise businesses capitalize on B2B eCommerce solutions.
- Streamlines business processes
Franchise businesses operate on a business model involving two parties: the franchisor and the franchisee, with multiple locations that are typically geographically dispersed and often sell various products. This can create significant challenges in managing the supply chain, including product sourcing, inventory and logistics management, quality control, compliance, and coordination.
With B2B eCommerce solutions, Rihiant explains that franchise businesses can streamline their ordering processes to make them faster and more efficient. It provides solutions that manage effective supply chain management practices, including centralizing inventory management where franchise businesses can track inventory levels at each location in real time, establishing clear communication channels between franchisors and franchisees, and conducting regular audits and inspections to ensure compliance.
Having a franchise business also entails critical components such as procurement, purchasing, and approval relationships with multiple stakeholders, including vendors, suppliers, and purchasing departments. Rihiant explains that these relationships can be complex, and managing them manually can be time-consuming and error-prone.
B2B eCommerce platforms are designed to support these relationships by automating and streamlining tasks such as order processing, invoicing, and approval workflows. Rihiant adds that by providing a centralized platform for these tasks, B2B eCommerce platforms eliminate the need for manual processes, reducing the risk of errors, and improving efficiency and productivity. It provides customized workflows and approval processes based on the business structure, ensuring that the right stakeholders are involved in each step of the procurement process.
- Links back-end operations together
Franchise businesses are typically made of multiple locations, each with its own back-end operations, including inventory management, order processing, and financial management, making linking back-end operations more challenging. This is especially true if each location uses a different system and data are not standardized or easily shareable. This complexity can result in inefficiencies, errors, and data silos.
The flexibility of B2B eCommerce platforms makes business operations easily customizable so companies can adjust quickly and accordingly. This makes integrating different systems easy, ensuring up-to-date and synchronized data, configuring product changes, price adjustments, and more.
“B2B eCommerce solutions ensure that each franchise location has access to the same data and is operating efficiently for improved operations and better customer experience,” Rihiant adds.
- Increases customer satisfaction
Rihiant explains that customer satisfaction is the core of any successful business operations, including franchise business. More satisfied customers lead to increased revenue and profitability. With this, B2B eCommerce solutions can help them achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction by providing a personalized and seamless customer experience.
Rihiant elaborates that with B2B eCommerce tools, franchise businesses can gain greater data visibility and offer customized product recommendations, loyalty programs, and promotional offers based on customer buying patterns.
At the same time, franchise businesses can use B2B eCommerce solutions to respond quickly to customer inquiries, provide accurate information, and resolve customer issues promptly. “This improves the customer experience and helps franchise businesses build trust, credibility, and strong relationships with their customers,” Rihiant explains.
What’s ahead for B2B eCommerce and franchise businesses
Rihiant believes that franchisors partnering with the right B2B eCommerce platform with next-generation SaaS B2B eCommerce solutions like DJUST will be able to establish seamless and efficient processes. With their vision to make B2B eCommerce accessible for all users facilitated by ultra-modern and sustainable technology, DJUST paves the way for growth and brand credibility, giving franchise businesses a competitive advantage in this fast-paced and competitive industry.
