Chapter 4 Developing System Standards and Enforcing Quality Control

I have a friend who used to own a McDonalds franchise in Canada. One day, Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds was traveling through that town and stopped my friends McDonalds. This was an unannounced visit as Ray was just traveling and not visiting any particular store for any particular reason. It was a rainy day and business was doing well that particular day.

Ray walked in and saw several people in each line. He also noticed a good bit of water that had been brought in by the customers. This could create a slipping hazard and potential law suits if someone was injured in a fall.

Ray walked up to the counter and told a young man that he needed to come out front and clean up the water. The young man, not knowing that he was speaking to the founder of McDonalds, told Ray, I will get to it in a little while, we are busy right now. Ray told the young man that if he did not take care of that water right now, he was going to shut down the McDonalds and leave it closed until all new staff had been hired.

I have another friend that owns a Baskin-Robbins ice cream franchise. He put cameras in several key locations in the store so he could watch the employees and potential crime issues. Employees had a uniform to wear that included one of those paper hats that are common in old ice cream stores.

It was not unusual for him to call the store and tell specific employees that they need to get their hat on since it was part of the uniform.

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Each story above has something similar most employees are young and this may be their first job. And something different: The Ray Kroc story happened long before technology came along.

So, for the discussion, think about those small businesses you have references up to this point and relate back to the chapter 4 information.

Do you think technology is a good way of enforcing standards?

If technology can help with these particular issues, would there be a need for district managers to visit franchisees on a regular basis?

Can small business owners use technology to help with employee issues when not present in the store?