Meantime Case Studies

The Midas touch helps drama franchise grow business

With 15,000 children attending Helen O'Grady drama academies around the UK each week, the paper-based recording system it used to keep track of pupils, accounts and deliver marketing was proving to be a major headache for the 50 academy principals and the franchisor's head office.

Several of the franchisees had, over time, developed their own way of keeping track of franchise income, enrolments and invoicing, with some using Word, others Excel and most the original paper-based systems. Head office was finding it increasingly difficult to monitor royalty reports and make sure payments were made in full and on time.

"Although our paper-based system worked perfectly, as a franchisor we realised that we had to update and standardise the system across the network," explains Margaret Darley, Helen O’Grady’s training manager. "Because our franchisees are drama teachers and not marketers or accountants, the information and payments we were receiving were sporadic to say the least. We were spending a huge amount of time chasing principals for information, and when it came in we just had to accept it as correct because there was no way of checking absolutely."

The Helen O’Grady drama academies originated in Australia, and the first four franchises opened in the UK in 1994. Since then, the UK arm of the company has grown steadily to its current level of 50 franchises, each headed by a principal. Each of those principals can then have as many as 85 classes in their geographical area, which include three age groups – lower primary, upper primary and youth theatre. With three terms in each year, the administration behind each franchise was creating a huge amount of work for principals and head office.

"Our network of franchises was growing at such a speed, we realised we had to do something as a company to streamline all the administration systems," says Margaret. "We needed a system that would do everything from registering enquiries, enrolling new children, recording attendance, fee collection, marketing – everything."

So the company approached bespoke software developers Meantime IT and asked them if they could create a system to standardise processes amongst all the franchisees and allow them to gain the information they needed at the touch of a button.

"The system within head office had to replicate our paper-based system as closely as possible, because we all knew it upside down and inside out - the theory of it didn’t need to change," explains Margaret. "It just needed to be instantly accessible, and also provide the franchisees with something that was simple, standardised and would free up their time to teach classes rather than plough through reams of paper every evening. And rather than creating something a world away from what we wanted and bombarding us with jargon, Meantime delivered a web-based system, which we called Midas (Management Information Data and Support), that worked exactly how we wanted it to – even the screens looked the same as our old paper forms so it was incredibly easy to make the switch."

Steve Parker is Meantime’s lead developer and project manager. He explains: "The biggest issue for Helen O’Grady was that 10% of the income each franchisee earned was paid in royalties to head office, but because the franchisees were drama teachers and not necessarily business minded, the money didn’t always come in on time. What we needed to provide was a system that would let them see at a glance just how many pupils were in each class, and exactly how much money each franchisee owed at any one time.

"From a franchisee’s point of view, they needed something that would automate the whole process. There was a huge amount of movement amongst classes; new enrolments and leavers, which child belonged to which parent or carer – and because they frequently had different names, that’s not as simple as it sounds – and then all the marketing and invoicing to take care of. Each principal had their own way of doing things, but as a franchise it was important to ensure that the messages that were going out were consistent." So Meantime created Midas, a two level web-based system that would allow each franchisee to enter their pupil’s details and then fully automate the process from enrolment to invoicing, taking care of movement between classes, invoicing – even printing certificates at the end of term. It also allowed head office to see at a glance exactly how many children were in each class, how much money was outstanding and how many classes were held in any given area.

"All the reports are in real time now, so if you enter a new student or payment it will be instantly visible to the franchisee and also to head office," explains Steve. "The mechanics of manually receiving a cheque, logging it, banking it, entering it into accounts and sending it to head office could take a month – now it’s instant. And for the franchisees, the headache of working out who should be invoiced for what, who’s moving classes and who’s staying has been completely removed – it’s all totally automated." Emma Steel runs the Helen O’Grady franchise in north west London. She says: "I really can’t sing the praises of Midas enough – it’s made such a difference to the way I work. I set a whole day aside to tackle a tax return, but it took just 10 minutes using the Midas system. I printed out my royalty reports, the banking summary and banked payment reports safe in the knowledge that they would all match up. It’s hilarious when I think back to the previous year, buried under a heap of paper and almost in tears because it wasn’t making any sense to me. And then on top of that, it also prints out my merit certificates!"

South Manchester principal Gill Hollis agrees. "Midas has saved us at least half the amount of time we used to spend on admin," she says. "I have six teachers in South Manchester and they can all use it remotely as it’s web based, meaning I can communicate with them very easily. I can just log in at any time and check fee sheets, see if there are any problems with children, check enrolments – everything. Without it I’d have to wade through piles of paper in indecipherable handwriting. And from a finance point of view, it’s excellent – I can track payments and produce royalty reports at the touch of a button."

So for the franchisees, it’s removed a whole admin layer that will free up their time to concentrate on what they do best – teaching drama. But in financial terms, it’s allowed Helen O’Grady to grow the business, as licensor Nigel Le Page explains: "The cost of installing the system has been treated as an investment for the future of the business," he says. "It’s released our franchisees to spend more time marketing and promotional activities, which in turn has led to the expansion of their own individual businesses."

Margaret agrees. "Having a standardised internet management system has helped us to sell the business as a business – it’s a much more professional, computerised set-up than we had before," she says. "In terms of time, it’s saved us hours and hours of chasing every term. It’s also helped us with marketing – before we were reliant on principals letting us know what they were doing, now the mailing system lets us see at a glance what they’re sending out, to who, and what response there’s been. We can also provide much more hands-on help to our franchisees, as we can see exactly what they can in terms of information they’ve recorded. So if they’re struggling with any aspect of their franchise, we can help them remotely because we can analyse where they might be going wrong. Being able to offer that level of support is extremely reassuring for a franchisee, especially if they’re quite new to the business." The Midas system has been so successful it’s now being rolled out across Helen O’Grady’s international network of franchises, with Portugal and Australia the latest countries to sign up. The company also has a presence in Africa, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, USA, South Africa and throughout Europe.

"Because of its simplicity and the way it was built, there have been absolutely no problems with amending Midas for an international market," says Margaret. "Meantime has been able to make the necessary amendments with regards to tax laws and currencies, and because the quality of the training I received was so thorough and simple to understand I was able to write a help manual which is sent out to all new users, here and abroad."

"The work Meantime has done with us in creating Midas and developing it to our requirements has been nothing but positive – it’s an excellent product that we will develop and grow as our business develops and grows."

Helen O'Grady Drama Academies: www.helenogrady.co.uk