Caremark’s managing director talks about compassionate franchisees and global growth.
Caremark provides domiciliary care and our clients are predominantly the elderly, but not exclusively.
We also provide care for children, people with learning difficulties, people with complex needs, re-enablement, and people coming out of hospital that need care.
Our customers are both local authority and private customers. In terms of the actual service itself, it is predominantly personal care. However, if people require assistance with other things – cleaning, cooking, shopping – we will undertake that as well for people as part of the overall service.
As managing director, I’m responsible for franchise recruitment, operations, training and marketing – all of those departments report to me.
I deal with them all on a daily basis. Because of my background – I’m a qualified lawyer – I will deal with any legal issues that come up and I’ll deal with external solicitors as and when needed. No two days are the same.
We’re not only in the U.K. – Caremark also has offices in the Republic of Ireland, one in Malta, and one in India.
The Republic of Ireland operates under a master license agreement, Malta operates under an individual franchise agreement, and India is a corporate-owned office at this moment in time.
The India model is quite unique. We set that up because we felt that we could make a significant difference to the lives of people who need care in India. With our experience and financial resources, we set up an office in Cochin, which is in Southern India, and the aim was to provide care to people who couldn’t afford it by charging people that could. A Robin Hood-style arrangement.
“We provide daily support to a care home that has destitute people in it that have been abandoned”
So we started providing care to people who could afford it, and we’ve just now started providing care on a free basis. We provide daily support to a care home that has destitute people in it that have been abandoned.
The pilot office is now making money, and we’re looking at franchise partners for India. We’ve identified that the concept works well.
Caremark’s values and ethos set us apart from other care companies, in terms of our focus is first and foremost on the quality of the care rather than the bottom line.
We appreciate that the bottom line is extremely important and our franchisees – both in the U.K. and internationally – do very well. But if the bottom line is your sole focus, then maybe a Caremark franchise isn’t for you; we want franchisees that are going to always put the customer first.
