Mobile Experts: independent franchise businesses, shared IT operations

When Mobile Experts moved into franchising, they needed franchisees to operate as separate businesses while continuing to use Mobile Experts’ ERP and infrastructure. We designed the model around a Microsoft 365 tenancy per franchise business, with controlled access back into corporate systems. A franchisee operating several stores could have those stores in the same tenancy. The boundary was the Pty Ltd, not the shopfront.

The initial request included Mobile Experts buying IT services and on-selling them to franchisees. We could accommodate parts of that, but Microsoft licensing needed a different arrangement. Microsoft’s Customer Agreement grants licences for the customer’s own business use, with specific provisions for affiliates and restrictions on sublicensing. We therefore structured the franchisees as direct licensing customers of C4X, rather than passing their Microsoft licences through Mobile Experts.

How the separate environments stayed connected

The configuration was quite specific. Each franchise business had its own Microsoft 365 environment for its users and data. Store email addresses continued to use the Mobile Experts brand through delegated subdomains, associated with the franchisee’s tenancy. Those accounts were then invited into Mobile Experts’ Microsoft environment and given access to the particular resources they required.

ERP access was provisioned separately, with permissions for the relevant functions. The same applied to wireless access: franchise accounts were provisioned into RADIUS so their stores could connect in the same way as corporate-owned stores. Essentially, being outside the corporate Microsoft tenancy did not mean being outside the corporate operation.

The commercial arrangements followed that separation. Network, internet and telephony services remained billed to Mobile Experts, while franchisees were billed directly for their managed services and Microsoft licensing. Each franchise business had its own support agreements.

The additional administration was real

This was not the cheapest environment to administer. We were quite clear about that.

A small franchise still required its own Microsoft environment, security configurations, monitoring, remote support, billing and records in our management systems. Having only a few computers did not remove that work. On top of supporting the franchise itself, we also had to maintain its integration with Mobile Experts. Our approach was to standardise the franchise configuration as much as possible, rather than design a different solution for every operator.

We also accounted for stores changing hands. The proposal covered new franchises, existing operators adding stores, corporate stores becoming franchises and franchises returning to corporate ownership. For a departing franchisee, the model provided for handing over its environments and severing connectivity to Mobile Experts, rather than holding its business data inside the franchisor’s tenancy.

For Mobile Experts, the important distinction was that franchise independence did not require duplicating the ERP or abandoning shared infrastructure. The franchise business could have its own Microsoft licensing, data and support relationship, while access to Mobile Experts’ systems was granted separately. That was the basis of the model: separate businesses, with the connections required to keep operating together.