Michael Kelly, who owns the Worldwide franchise in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood, said he believed the company would be best served by having an owner that wouldn’t become “distracted” by the printing side of the business.
“I think there were a lot of things as a franchisor that they could have done,” he said.
However, Kelly thought the administration would likely have a positive outcome. ProPrint has contacted more than a dozen franchisees across Australia, and they largely saw improvements on the horizon.
“I’m not concerned about what’s happened – I’m more positive about the future. I think the change is a good thing,” said Kelly.
Kelly said he thought Worldwide would be bought out by a company that would split off the printing operations from the franchising.
“The new franchisor – unless they’re a big printing company with spare capacity that might want to do their own printing – I don’t think they’ll want to have a bar of printing,” he said.
“My view is the hub-and-spoke is an excellent business model and I’m in favour of Worldwide retaining the model going forward, but I would want to see the print supply under separate ownership from the franchisor side of the business, or at least operating as totally separate entities,” he added.
Kelly said the company has already been outsourcing some of its ‘non-standard jobs’ – the work that follows different specifications to the ‘standard gang jobs’ that the hubs are geared for – as these jobs were often “disruptive” to the workflow of the hubs.
In his capacity as the NSW member on the Worldwide Franchise Advisory Council, Kelly said he and others had discussed a move towards full outsourcing before the company came into trouble.
Kelly, who has been a Worldwide franchisee for six years, claimed the company started to lose its way when founder Clive Denholm left the company four years ago.
“The first couple of years I thought things went really well. When Clive sold out his holdings, from then on it kind of went between average and not so good,” he said.
Kelly also said the administrators, McGrath Nicol, had told franchisees they would receive regular updates on the progress of the administration.
Of the franchisees contacted by ProPrint, most seemed somewhat in the dark over the administration so far, though they said it had been largely business as usual.
Mark Walker, the owner of the Fyshwick franchise, described the administration as a mere “hiccup” in the company’s growth.
“I’m pretty sure we’ll come out of this stronger than before. We have the utmost confidence in the guys that are sorting this out,” he said.
Worldwide Australia Holdings entered voluntary administration on 25 February, with McGrath Nicol’s James Thackray and Shaun Fraser appointed as administrators.
The administrators said “the focus is on minimising any disruption to franchisees to preserve the value in the national franchise network for the long-term”.
Printing Industries has also weighed in on the issue. Chief executive Philip Andersen said that the association would continue to provide services to its Worldwide members until the end of the month.
“Currently we service 65 franchise operators employing hundreds of people around Australia. We believe it is important they know their access to our specialist staff advisory and support services and products is intact during this time,” said Andersen.
“We hope that by 1 April some definite plans to support the franchisees have been put in place by the administrator.”
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