Business View - February 2015 65
A factory to produce the engineered stone was built in
Italy in 2000 to serve the burgeoning Australian and
neighboring New Zealand markets, and the initial ven-
ture into the United States was made two years later
with the opening of a franchised location in Mira Loma,
Calif. Within another several years, franchises were
being opened in the United Kingdom; and the Italian
plant, which was nearing its full capacity, was closed
in favor of a new manufacturing facility in Sebring, Fla.
The Sebring plant now produces and exports slab
material to all of the company’s 160 global markets.
Granite Transformations’ North American corporate
headquarters – which oversees 65 franchises in the
United States and 11 more in Canada – is 150 miles
south in the Miami suburb of Miramar.
“We’re not just a franchise company. We own the man-
ufacturing component. We own the entire chain, from
soup to nuts,” Lane said. “We cover it all and that’s
rare in our industry. Typically you’re either a manufac-
turer or you’re a fabricator/installer. We’ve blended it
all into one component.”
The corporate apparatus still owns three locations
(two in Florida, one in California), and one more com-
pany store in each state, Lane said, should be opened
by the midway point of 2015. The reasons for main-
taining a stake, he said, include both maintaining the
ability to relate to issues faced by franchise owners,
and using the corporate units as developmental labo-
ratories for would-be owners.
“We really want to walk a mile in their shoes. We want
to understand the challenges of running a franchise.
We want to understand how we can improve the fran-
chise system,” Lane said. “To be a good franchisor, you
need to own a franchise yourself. Kitchen and bath re-
modeling is not as simple as operating a yogurt fran-
chise or even a pizza franchise or a service franchise.
FRANCHISE
