Business Planning – Manager

This position will assist the franchisee in creating a healthy business by providing insight and direct consultation into the business’s financial performance, capitalization and operational opportunities. In addition, the position will provide analytical support to the Real Estate, Franchise Development and Field Operations teams.

Supervisory Responsibilities: This position has no supervisory responsibilities.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelors’ degree in Finance, Accounting, Business or related field.
• Professional Experience: 5+ years’ work experience with advanced computer skills and demonstrated expertise in complex Excel-based financial modeling.

Essential Duties and Requirements:

• Function as a consultant to the field operations team and franchisees to provide data and analytics support to optimize the P&L and operational performance.
• Manage the business review process, including design, to ensure consistency, goal setting and measurable outcomes.
• Responsible for training the field team (Market Leaders and Vice-Presidents) on how to use the business review and other data platforms to generate improvement in financial and operational performance.
• Conduct complex analyses to improve operations and financial health for existing and new franchisees.
• Manage the design and content of the Best Small Business in America data analytics package, including “toolkit” templates for Field Team and content of key reports distributed to the Franchise Community (Balanced Score Card, MODE, etc.)
• Function as a high level consultant on the management of the financial workout process. Duties include the building of a model to understand a complete cash flow picture of a franchisee’s business and capitalization, engage with external third parties as needed to work with landlords and bankers and ultimately present a plan to Sonic Senior Management for approval.
• Position will require direct, candid and respectful conversations with franchisees.
• Manage and monitor Joint Venture performance. Provide coaching to improve opportunities and ensure expenses are recorded fairly.
• Manage relationships with lenders to ensure adequate access to capital for franchisees.
• Manage the operational KPI Balanced Score Card process (gain buy-in on respective scoring standards, design and method for dissemination).
• Identify franchisees at financial risk and work with field team to develop a plan to address the situation. Likely scenarios include business turnaround or assistance in transitioning the franchisee out of their Sonic investment.
• Create and disseminate Quarterly Development Score Card, Development (RDTF) report and competitive benchmarking (including investment, margins, EBITDAR and opening volume) to provide insight to senior management regarding Sonic’s ROI relative to our peers.
• Complete P & L, Cash Flow and Operational analysis by franchise group and market.
• Manage oversight of recurring reports and deliverables to senior management related to P & L / Cash Flow analysis, Executive-FAC Report, etc.
• Manage special projects as requested to provide specific insights to Senior Management (Inside Dining Analysis, Stall Optimization, Incentive modeling, etc.).
• Other duties assigned as needed.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.