How franchise networking fairing – February 2021 Update

How franchise networking fairing – February 2021 Update

By Simon Pullum, Managing Director at Azura Group Ltd

This is the second month of our comparison looking at how different sectors within franchising are coping with Covid

We’re staying with the three sectors we looked at last month

• Job and Van Based networks
• Contract Based networks, including Cleaning franchises
• Children’s activities

Job and Van Based Networks

Here we’re looking at the number of Jobs performed in January, the total value of those jobs and the average job value

• Change in number of Jobs Jan 21 vs Feb 20 = -12.26%
• Change in Total Job Value Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = -5.55%
• Change in Avg Job Value Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = +9.89%

So what we can see here is whilst the average number of jobs is down is still down, it is a marked improvement on the January figures. More importantly the Jan 20 and Feb 20 figures are broadly similar so this is a genuine improvement over the Jan 21 figures.

Contract Based Networks

For contract based networks we’re looking at the number of Active Contracts in Feb, the total value of those contracts and the average contract value

• Change in number of Contracts Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = +0.79%
• Change in Total Contract Value Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = -15.62%
• Change in Avg Contract Value Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = -13.68%

So what we’re seeing here is that across the sector there has been a small increase in the number of Active contracts, but the value of those contracts is lower and this has changed very little since last month – again with the Commercial Contract cleaning fairing better than Domestic cleaning

Children’s Activity Based Networks

Here we’re looking at the number of classes being offered, the numbers attending them and the revenue generated from them

This sector has been the most heavily affected by the lockdowns and most networks have switched to some form of Online Offering during this period, so what has been the effect.

• Change in number of Classes Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = -5.28%
• Change in attendees Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = -40.2%
• Change in Attendee Value Feb 21 vs Feb 20 = -7.5%

This is a really large improvement over the Jan 21 figures, however unlike the Job and Van figures, the ‘improvement’ is because this sector was already seeing a Covid effect in Feb 20, whereas it was still to hit other sectors. The Jan 21 and Feb 21 figures are broadly similar here.

Summary

In each of these sectors we do see quite a wide performance variation – how is your network performing against these averages.

Whilst we’ve seen some improvement in the figures this month, some genuine and some because the starting point is getting lower, next month will be very interesting because it will compare the first month of the first lockdown with the current locked down month.