We run a manufacturing facility. Of the five things that we do, four are produced in-house. When you run a manufacturing facility, raw materials need to come in through the backdoor before finished product can go out the front door.

You need a supply chain and that supply chain needs to be coordinated with orders that you are taking from your customers.

Like any chain, it is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

In the case of our supply chain the links are our vendors and it is our job as the Franchisor to make sure that those links are strong.

To accomplish that, we maintain a Preferred Vendor List for each of the countries that we operate in, currently Canada and the US.

Preferred Vendors provide our franchisees with equipment, materials and products that will do the job well and to ensure that we are able to provide support to you:

They are chosen based on a number of criteria.

• National Presence – To ensure availability of equipment and products to our growing system, in a timely and cost effective manner. Using a “just in time approach” to inventory management whenever possible.
• Price – Their willingness to first provide us with a competitive price and to adjust that price as our system grows.
• Usability – Almost nothing we buy; products, materials or equipment is available without competition. In cases, where a variety of different products are available, they will not always perform equally well. Our Partner Support Team tests the products they recommend to ensure that they will do what we need them to do.

That Preferred Vendor List is made up of 3 types of vendors - Required, Recommended and Regional.

Required Vendors, predominantly equipment vendors, are the ones that we require the entire brand to use without exception or deviation. A necessity when you are advising your Franchisees on the large purchases that they will make for their business. And, when you are trying to build consistency across a multi-national brand.

Recommended Vendors make up the bulk of our vendors and are those that we have vetted to meet the criteria noted above. There may be times when you as an independent business owner choose not to use vendors from this list, as you believe that it is in the best interest of your Center to do so. But each time that you do that, you are weakening the brand, so we ask that you consider that decision carefully, before acting on it.

Regional Vendors are usually in place when the size and shipping weight of the goods that they provide prohibit getting them from any distance away. Or when an on-site presence (e.g. for service) is a necessity.