Steve Krolak, vice-president, Taco Maker, USA

"As part of our New Store Development Package we include the necessary equipment and software specifications so all new franchisees know exactly how to operate their facilities in a productive and profitable manner. StockLink is now an integral and vital part of that package. In today's world no one can afford to wait until the end of the month to see if they got lucky and made some money. By then it could obviously be far too late and we're not in the business of gambling.

With StockLink, our franchisees can review their productivity at the end of each and every day. This allows us as the franchisor to help our franchisees make the necessary course corrections to address those critical factors that impact on our business. Marketing and advertising plans can be adjusted as needed. Key points of business operations that are taught in our extensive training program are reinforced when renewed focus is needed.

When we explain this to potential franchisees, it shows them we mean business. Shows them we have the systems in place that eliminates risk. Once accepted as a franchise, we not only teach our franchisees how to make a great tasting burrito but how to run a great business. We also teach them what to look for on the business front.

StockLink gives them the information they need to quickly determine if their business is on track or not. In the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR), orfast-food business, we have to deal with some pretty volatile factors and again StockLink is a key ingredient.

Controlling labour and food costs is essential to our success. Labour turn-over tends to be very high in this industry. For the most part there are a lot of younger people; high school students just starting out in the work force, and those that are working their way through college. Training and proper scheduling sounds like QSR 101, but it's not always that simple. You have to know and understand your business and that includes customer trends and patterns, not just class schedules.

It means you need to track performance and measure that performance against a proven profitable model. Tracking that sort of information and pulling it from our other outlets allows us to constantly validate our own model and guide our franchisees in a responsible manner. Our menu items are made fresh from scratch daily. When you make the decision to offer that level of food quality, getting the right amount of each of our specially selected ingredients to each of our outlets in a timely manner is the only way we can guarantee the freshness of the food we serve.

We can't afford to run out of food, we'll frustrate and lose customers. Nor can we afford to throw away excessive amounts of stale food products as that drives up the overall costs. It's perhaps the simplest example of where knowledge is power. In our case, it is the difference between making money or losing it."