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The Finn Review - Issue 6

Interview with Oporto CEO, Jeff Fisher

Jeff Fisher is the driving force behind Australia's leading premium food franchise, Oporto. Competition is fierce in the fast food category, and Oporto are booming. In fact, since joining Oporto almost 18 months ago, he has almost doubled the business to 73 stores and heading towards $80 million in sales.

Jeff Fisher has a relaxed demeanour, but I soon discovered he is also a man with considerable franchising experience, and a clear focus on making Oporto the best it can be. He was kind enough to speak with me recently.

SF: Thanks for your time Jeff. Have you always been in the food game?
JF: No I haven't actually! I've spent a bit of time at Coles Myer, the Warehouse Group, and a good few years with John Banks who ran a couple of chains of licensed hardware stores. More recently I spent about 10 years with BBQ's Galore prior to joining Oporto in April '03.

SF: How's everything going at Oporto?
JF: Really good thanks Steve. It's been a very exciting and challenging time especially considering the growth were are going through. There's a lot of infrastructure to build in the business, a lot of people to bring on board, and a lot of procedural aspects to continually improve on. I'm a big believer in building the infrastructure before it's actually needed.

SF: How many Oporto stores do you have now?
JF: Eventhough we've been around for 18 years, we've really only been in growth mode for the past three-and-a-half years. When I joined the company in April last year, we had about 40 stores across Australia and New Zealand. Today we've got 67 stores here in Australia and 6 on the ground in New Zealand.

SF: So where to from here?
JF: At the moment we seem to open a new store every few weeks so we hope to continue at that rate. We work to a five-year plan and at the moment we're heading towards the 250-store mark.

SF: Are you comfortable you have the infrastructure to support this growth?
JF: As I mentioned earlier I think one of the challenges of being a franchise company is actually building the infrastructure ahead of it's requirements. I believe this is imperative to build a successful business. So we've been investing heavily in infrastructure over the past two years and we've got a team now that's capable of really managing things as we grow. In fact we are in a position now where we could handle hundreds of stores with the structure we have in place.

SF: How exactly have you set-up your support structure?
JF: It's a very flat structure. We have Operations, Training, Marketing, Supply Chain Management, Chief Financial Officer, myself as CEO, and of course the admin team and our Field Area Managers.

SF: How many stores do you like your Field staff to look after?
JF: We try to have our Field Area Manager's look after about 10 stores each.

SF: How do Oporto promote the franchise opportunity to potential franchisees?
JF: We take quite a diverse approach with this. The most obvious is through newspaper advertising. We also use PR opportunities, advertising in the Franchising magazine, information nights, word-of-mouth from the existing franchisee base, and franchise consultants.

SF: Is it a challenge to generate enough enquiry for your franchise opportunities?
JF: You know Steve I think it depends on a few factors. It's always easier to generate more quality leads in your home market which for us is NSW where we have the majority of our stores and the biggest brand presence. In our new markets such as Queensland and Victoria it's more of a challenge and we do have to work harder to get the quality and quantity of leads.

SF: What market forces do you think influence these levels of franchise enquiry?
JF: I think the factors effecting potential franchisees are certainly out there. You only have to look at the cooling-off of the property market - people are not feeling as equity-rich as they have been in recent times. The other thing is our very strong employment rate in this country. People are feeling very secure in their jobs. These factors probably have an effect on all of us as franchisors.

SF: Do you have a ratio of company-owned stores versus franchises stores that you aim for?
JF: At the moment we have five company-owned stores. We do plan on increasing this as time goes on. We're not intending to become a heavily-weighted company-owned operation but we will always hold a solid number of company stores for training reasons, products trial reasons and those sort of things.

SF: Would you like to share some business tips with up-and-coming franchisors?
JF: Sure. Look I guess it's all common sense but one of the really core important aspects is to grow your store numbers at a pace that is realistic. What I mean by that is making sure that you choose the right sites for the right reasons and be prepared to walk away from the wrong sites. Fundamentally we are very cautious about where we'll put a store, how we approach a market, and making sure the sites are going to be successful. I certainly feel very strongly about this.

SF: What is the key thing that you look for in new franchisees?
JF: Without a doubt it is the commitment to working in the business. I mean putting serious amounts of time in 'on the floor' in the business. Making sure customers are getting great service, great product, and great quality day-in day-out.

SF: Do you encourage multi-site ownership at Oporto?
JF: We do, however under a strict criteria. We have a number of our stores under multi-site ownership and it's something we want to continue to encourage. The basis of this is that the owner-operator needs to be able to train somebody to replace themselves and then stand back and manage that person.