The primary advantages for most companies entering the realm of franchising are capital, speed of growth, motivated management, and risk reduction -- but there are many others as well.
1. Capital
The most common barrier to expansion faced by today’s small businesses is lack of access to capital. Franchising, as an alternative form of capital acquisition, offers some advantages. The primary reason most entrepreneurs turn to franchising is that it allows them to expand without the risk of debt or the cost of equity. First, since the franchisee provides all the capital required to open and operate a unit, it allows companies to grow using the resources of others. By using other people’s money, the franchisor can grow largely unfettered by debt.
Moreover, since the franchisee -- not the franchisor -- signs the lease and commits to various contracts, franchising allows for expansion with virtually no contingent liability, thus greatly reducing the risk to the franchisor. This means that as a franchisor, not only do you need far less capital with which to expand, but your risk is largely limited to the capital you invest in developing your franchise company -- an amount that is often less than the cost of opening one additional company-owned location.
2. Motivated Management
Another stumbling block facing many entrepreneurs wanting to expand is finding and retaining good unit managers. All too often, a business owner spends months looking for and training a new manager, only to see them leave or, worse yet, get hired away by a competitor. And hired managers are only employees who may or may not have a genuine commitment to their jobs, which makes supervising their work from a distance a challenge.
But franchising allows the business owner to overcome these problems by substituting an owner for the manager. No one is more motivated than someone who is materially invested in the success of the operation. Your franchisee will be an owner -- often with his life’s savings invested in the business. And his compensation will come largely in the form of profits.
The combination of these factors will have several positive effects on unit level performance.
3. Speed of Growth
Every entrepreneur who's developed something truly innovative has the same recurring nightmare: that someone else will beat them to the market with their own concept. And often these fears are based on reality.
The problem is that opening a single unit takes time. For some entrepreneurs, franchising may be the only way to ensure that they capture a market leadership position before competitors encroach on their space, because the franchisee performs most of these tasks. Franchising not only allows the franchisor financial leverage, but also allows it to leverage human resources as well. Franchising allows companies to compete with much larger businesses so they can saturate markets before these companies can respond.
4. Staffing Leverage
Franchising allows franchisors to function effectively with a much leaner organization. Since franchisees will assume many of the responsibilities otherwise shouldered by the corporate home office, franchisors can leverage these efforts to reduce overall staffing.
5. Ease of Supervision
From a managerial point of view, franchising provides other advantages as well. For one, the franchisor is not responsible for the day-to-day management of the individual franchise units. At a micro level, this means that if a shift leader or crew member calls in sick in the middle of the night, they're calling your franchisee -- not you -- to let them know. And it's the franchisee’s responsibility to find a replacement or cover their shift. And if they choose to pay salaries that aren't in line with the marketplace, employ their friends and relatives, or spend money on unnecessary or frivolous purchases, it won't impact you or your financial returns. By eliminating these responsibilities, franchising allows you to direct your efforts toward improving the big picture.
6. Increased Profitability
The staffing leverage and ease of supervision mentioned above allows franchise organizations to run in a highly profitable manner. Since franchisors can depend on their franchisees to undertake site selection, lease negotiation, local marketing, hiring, training, accounting, payroll, and other human resources functions (just to name a few), the franchisor’s organization is typically much leaner (and often leverages off the organization that's already in place to support company operations). So, the net result is that a franchise organization can be more profitable.
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