POS Renovation Sparks Vast Growth
Featuring Key Jobson, CIO, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory

Used with permission from Integrated Solutions for Retailers magazine

A chocolatier streamlines operations and triples the number of franchises launched each year after deploying a new POS system.

A new franchised business is opened every 8 minutes of every business day, as noted by Franchise Consultants, Inc. That’s a lot of revenue to manage, considering the average royalty fees (paid by franchisees to franchisors) range from 3% to 6% of monthly gross sales. Like retailers running several store locations that are managed by different store managers, franchisors have the right to control which processes and systems (e.g. POS hardware/software, merchandising software, inventory software) that franchisees use. Consider McDonald’s. Every location employs the same equipment, processes, and products. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (RMCF), a franchisor, recently made the decision to standardize POS hardware and software at all of its franchise locations.

With 314 franchised stores and five company-owned locations, RMCF’s CIO Key Jobson felt he lacked visibility into POS transactional details from his franchisees. The retailer is always looking for operational efficiencies, and approximately six years ago, that focus was on its POS. RMCF executives sought individual store POS transaction data, so the retailer could determine which marketing techniques worked best in different retail environments. Additionally, the retailer wanted the ability to view POS data across the entire chain and analyze merchandise data to help initiate new marketing campaigns.