Three areas spring to mind where our business is seeing most increased activity.

The first is the trend towards multi-unit franchisees where, perhaps surprisingly, there are several franchises where just operating one outlet doesn’t really produce a satisfactory return for a good franchisee, whereas having a mini-chain of three, five or even more outlets is a much more attractive business. Provided the franchisee has the team and the management skills to run such an operation this is great news for the franchisor provided they recruit and train for this model.

Moving on from here, there are now an increasing number of multi-brand franchisees with perhaps a number of each of, say, pizza, chicken, burger and coffee outlets. This would have old-style franchisors spinning in their graves as they would never have allowed their franchisees to operate other, competing businesses. However a good operator is a good operator and provided they can bring success to all the brands which they represent, then why not?

Finally, there’s the trend towards multi-brand franchisors. Once a franchisor nears capacity in their home market they have to consider whether to take their brand into international markets or to create another system at home. Many choose the latter option and embark on acquiring master licences from overseas or taking over existing franchised businesses in their own country.

The good news with all of these is that they demonstrate the continuing growth of franchising as a way of doing business all around the world.

Brian Duckett
Chairman