Just do 'IT' via franchising

Just like other entrants in the franchise trade, the most bothering factor even for the IT professionals remains the cost aspect. Now, with the fast growing franchise industry such professionals have diverse investment options in varied sectors and industries. More number of brands are giving their franchise rights to IT professionals because of the huge skill set they possess and also for many other reasons related to business acumen.

Rewards

Most IT professionals are well educated and they usually prefer to gather enough knowledge about the industry they are interested in.  Chackochen Mathai, GM, Business Development, Trends In Vogue Pvt Ltd says: “Firstly, they are process driven; they understand and obey corporate culture and also the value of number crunching. IT professionals are loaded with high business acumen.”

On the same front, Manisha Agarwal, Retail Head, Presto Wonders says: “IT professionals are computer savvy, which is very much helpful in our business to design our products and shape the emotions.” Online travel search site, Ezeego1.com also provides numerous franchise opportunities to IT professionals.  Neelu Singh, COO, Ezeego1.com comments: “We are in the business of online travel and therefore have a huge dependency on technology to drive our business. Hence, partnering with entrepreneurs who are tech savvy is always an advantage. It saves us the time and effort to generate awareness about the benefits of using technology to optimise business output and facilitate seamless operations.”

Shortcomings

Like many other new applicants in the industry, even the IT professionals have some hitches attached to them.  It may be due to high expectations or costing or it can be returns factor. Mathai of Trends In Vogue Pvt Ltd says: “There can be certain disadvantages also when associating with IT professionals in the franchise trade. Since they are process driven, deviation from the process irritates them. They have high expectation from the brand to deliver and since they don’t have an entrepreneurial experience they look at it as a job, which is a concern as they look at everything in a processed manner. To an extent they also lack patience to wait for RoI, since they have borrowed and invested.” Singh of Ezeego1.com adds: “For us lack of travel domain expertise is a disadvantage in IT professionals.”

Breakeven is faster

Fast Clean, a tank cleaning Services Company from Chattisgarh has 48 franchisees out of which five are run by IT professionals. Trends In Vogue has 296 franchisees out of which 32, i.e. 10.8 per cent are IT Professionals. According to Mathai IT professionals break even faster as they understand process and do what the franchisor tells them to do. Mohan Impressions Pvt Limited that owns the brand Presto Wonders requires an investment of Rs 10-16 lakh with RoI of 75 per cent for IT professionals. 20 per cent of Presto Wonders franchise outlets are run by IT professionals. Ezeego1.com has 21 franchisees across India out of which two are run by IT professionals. Of the two, one of them has just launched. The other store that has been in operation for the past 18 months operationally had break even in the third month, RoI commenced from the sixth month onwards and their entire investment was recovered in the fifteenth month.

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that IT professionals tops the priority list for franchisor across sectors. With exceptional technical and analytical skills, there is no doubt that IT professionals are a major asset with a potential for leadership.