Press Releases
June 01, 2005 | |
Critter Control Becomes 38th Franchisor to Partner With Insight Direct |  | Boston, MA and Traverse City, MI -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- June 1, 2005 --Critter Control ®, the nation's leading animal and wildlife control firm, and Insight Direct, Inc. announced today the signing of a licensing and services agreement making ServiceCEO ®the exclusive business management software solution for Critter Control's 100 franchises throughout North America. Critter Control's decision reflects the emergence of a new trend for franchisors that choose to partner with outside software companies rather than develop time-consuming and costly in-house software systems. "We found that our custom-built solution was not meeting the demands of our Critter Control franchisees," said Kevin Clark, CEO, Critter Control. "After researching several alternatives we selected ServiceCEO based on its breadth of customizable features and the training and technical support services offered by Insight Direct." Robin T. Miller, VP Business Development, Insight Direct noted that "Critter Control has become the thirty-eighth franchisor to partner with Insight Direct and embrace a new franchise model for software delivery. We look forward to helping Critter Control focus its efforts on building its franchise, instead of building software." Today, franchisors are choosing to purchase off-the-shelf software, like ServiceCEO, in order to build a consistent platform across all franchisees, while also allowing individual franchisees the flexibility to configure software to fit their unique business needs. This represents a distinct shift in the franchise model for software delivery: proprietary software was often developed in-house by franchisors, thereby keeping unique software features from other competitors. Yet, what franchisors have come to realize is that the time commitment required, as well as the cost of building and maintaining proprietary software, is prohibitive -- and it is virtually impossible to keep up with the latest technology while responding effectively to franchisee requests. Moreover, franchisors have determined that software features alone do not differentiate them from competitors; instead it is the franchise system of customer service, operating procedures, marketing, vendor relationships and knowledge management as a whole that creates competitive advantage. Franchisors that have adopted this new approach have reallocated their time and money once previously dedicated to software development, and reinvested it back into their franchise system. This significant step has allowed franchisors to achieve faster growth in both the number of franchises sold and the size of those franchises. About Critter Control
About Insight Direct
Contacts:
Sean Carruth
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