Brisbane waters fail to sink franchise winner

Recognising achievements before and after to the Brisbane floods, Worldwide Online Printing has named George Bacic, franchisee of South Brisbane as national franchisee of the year 2009/ 2010.

George Bacic, managing director at Worldwide South Brisbane says that while the title is great, “it doesn’t change our ongoing commitment to our customers and our ability to give them great service and great quality products to help them promote and grow their business.

“This is an award that belongs to all our staff past and present that have put in over the years to make sure our operation runs smoothly and consistently to produce the outcomes that our customers have learnt to expect.”

The award follows South Brisbane’s earlier win of Queensland Franchisee of the year at the Worldwide Queensland State Awards held last November.

Pictured: Franchisee of the year George Bacic with wife Suzanne

According to Worldwide Online Printing, the criteria for selecting its franchise of the year are based around encouraging and rewarding the behaviour exhibited by the most successful owners in its network. Sales figures from 2009/2010 were also a contributing factor.

Queensland floods drew half a meter of water through the South Brisbane franchise, which shut down the premises for around three weeks.

“We have managed to get back on our feet with a lot of hard work from staff, partners, friends and volunteers, it has been stressful, but thanks to the support of our customers and suppliers our business is better than ever,” said Bacic.

Natasha Anich, business development manager for the South Brisbane franchise says it moved all of its machinery out a day before the floods hit, “we were fortunate to do that with the help of Konica Minolta and Océ. It was all hands on deck with suppliers and curriers to get everything out in the nick of time.”

“We didn’t shut the business down completely, production moved down to our store at Springwood and offsite to some of our suppliers to help us out. We couldn’t move our large format into Springwood so we moved it into one of our supplier’s workshop. By doing this we were able to keep production up while operations at South Brisbane were closed down.

Worldwide Online Printing’s state support helped with the clean up and the marketing to make sure all of its customers knew when it was back in business.

“Our directors George Bacic, Paul Anich and Andrew Cochrane have been working for a really long time to build the customer base and offering of South Brisbane, and the franchisor has recognised that hard work,” said Anich.

Since the trio have been operating the franchise they have built the business to include a range of services including digital, offset and large format print capabilities and graphic design.

Worldwide Online Printing South Brisbane would like to thank it’s customers as without their support and relationships it may not have been in this position to win franchisee of the year.

Pictured: During the floods

Pictured: After the floods