As we grow Ankota's business, I try to read a lot about successful growing businesses and apply their lessons.  Today I read a compelling article about Brightstar, a Chicago-based home care franchise, and some lessons learned by their CEO Shelly Sun.  As always I encourage you to read the original article, but here are some of the highlights:

• A survey taught them things that the numbers didn't reveal: In this case they learned that franchisees were unhappy
• Listening to Customers yielded Great Results: In this case the customers were franchisees, but we can all learn through customer feedback (good and bad)
• Less is More: By sponsoring less initiatives but doing them very well, the company improved satisfaction.
• Growth is not Good Enough: Home care is a rapidly growing market, so doing better than last year might mean that you're still losing pace and losing share.  In Brightstar's case they're on pace to grown from $51M in 2009 to $115M in 2010 - over 100% growth.
• Improving the Technology yields strong Returns: One area where Brightree gained success and satisfaction from their franchises was in the technology improvement initiatives.

Whether you run a large or small home care business, there are things to learn from Brightstar's course corrections and the positive results they've yielded. 

Note that if you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy this story, inspired by Pat Drea, COO of Visiting angels.

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.