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Meet the South-Asian entrepreneurs taking franchising to new heights

Meet the South-Asian entrepreneurs taking franchising to new heights

Introducing some of the powerhouse franchisees behind the brands building big across the United Kingdom

It was the feeling of handing out her business cards that reassured Nirmal Thakkar that entrepreneurship was truly for her. Having grown up in India and settled in the UK, she is one of the many entrepreneurs within the South Asian community who has helped to propel franchising’s growth across the UK.

In fact, South Asian entrepreneurs in this country are estimated to contribute more than £25 billion annually to the UK economy via their businesses (some of which are franchises), according to the Economy Policy Group. Here, we meet some of the powerhouse franchisees behind the brands.


Nirmal Thakkar, franchisee of Rosemary Bookkeeping, Stevenage

“I’ve always had something in me where I’ve wanted to own my own business and do something for myself because I knew I could achieve it,” says Nirmal Thakkar, franchisee of Rosemary Bookkeeping’s Stevenage location.

Nirmal came to the UK from India in 2002, gaining an MBA from Hertfordshire University – which confirmed her interest in entrepreneurialism.

However, it wasn’t until she had her second child years later that she realised it was right time to consider business ownership, seeking the flexibility it provides to enable her to spend time with her young family while earning.

“My husband is a chartered accountant himself, and my family is full of chartered accountants,”
says Nirmal. “I was looking at all these different things that I could do from home, and the Rosemary franchise was brought to my attention by one of my friends.”

She decided to invest in Rosemary Bookkeeping, which predominantly services small- and medium-sized businesses. The franchise is part of the ServiceMaster Company umbrella – which also houses franchise brands such as Merry Maids, TruGreen, ServiceMaster Restore, and ServiceMaster Clean.

“The best thing about franchising is the support that you get in the background. They do the marketing for you, they have people for you, and they have the management behind you,” explains Nirmal.

She’s now been operating the business for two years and has built up a substantial client base with the support of the franchise.

However, Nirmal says that despite this support, it’s critical to devote time to getting your name out there – a key difference to the Indian market, which can often be more community-based from the off.

“There is definitely a difference in India. Anybody and everybody can start a business. You don’t have to go out networking your business, people would automatically trust you because you’re part of the community,” she explains.

“Here in the UK, you have to network, you have to go out and market yourself. In this country, I’ve seen nothing happen without sales and marketing. I’ve seen people who know everything about bookkeeping and accountancy, but struggle because they’re not able to talk to people.”

Networking is something Nirmal knew she had to devote time to right from the start, taking a bold approach. “For my very first customer, I just walked into this bathroom store and said I just wanted to introduce myself as one of the local bookkeepers. He was the happiest guy I’ve ever seen on that day,” she says.

The owner was in the market for a new bookkeeper but hadn’t had the time to find anybody up to that point.

Nirmal’s confidence paid off and confirmed this was the method she needed to take as she established her business (even dressing as an airhostess when pitching at one networking event).

She also hands leaflets out in the high street and directly emails potential customers as opposed to focusing on press releases, which has proven fruitful. Nirmal has been careful to ensure that this initial one-to-one experience is not diluted once clients are onboarded – believing that her personal approach has been crucial to her success so far.

“When one of the clients was due and their accountant hadn’t done the VAT, I was with my family at the fair, but I still I texted him at 6pm in the evening to make sure they submitted for him. I would not leave my clients alone if they don’t know what they’re doing. I’ll always support them with their journey.”

Now having established a firm footing in Stevenage’s bookkeeping market, Nirmal wants to grow the business. “If you are the kind of person who wants to go out and build your own business, do it,” she says.

“The one thing you always must remember is the hard work still has to come from you.”

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Siva Kugathas, master franchisee of ServiceMaster Clean AAA, UK

Siva Kugathas has had a successful run over the past several years –hanging in ServiceMaster Clean
AAA’s head office are numerous industry accolades.

He’s won at the British Franchise Awards five times, including the People’s Choice Award – which is chosen via public vote. More recently, he’s on a high from winning the European Franchising Awards – an acknowledgement of his efforts from an international level.

However, he’s keen to stress that these awards have resulted from the achievements of his staff members, not just him – it’s a sense of collectiveness that he carries throughout his business approach.

“I have a theory: happy staff equals happy customers, happy customers equal happy business owner. So, it’s key to look after your staff as they will look after your customers,” he says.

Siva bought Servicemaster Clean AAA as a resale, building upon the franchise’s existing foundations to reduce staff turnover and expand the brand across the entire country.

There are now 708 staff members spanning from Scotland all the way down England’s south coast – an accomplishment that suggests Siva was always meant to be a franchise entrepreneur.

However, this wasn’t always on the cards, arriving in the UK as a refugee from Sri Lanka as a teen with no support.

“I came to the UK as a refugee, I went to school, I did my A-Levels, and I went to uni, but I started working because I was on my own. I had no support and no family here,” he explains.

“I was a cook at KFC, then became a supervisor, then assistant manager, manager, restaurant manager for UK and Ireland, then national project manager and area manager.”

It was while in his role overseeing KFC and Pizza Hut’s franchise operations, that Siva decided it was time to look for something that provided more flexibility to look after his children.

Having seen the benefits of franchising first hand, he decided that opening his own business was the best option to achieving this.

“I knew I had the enterprise skill and could work hard, and it didn’t matter in which industry. All I wanted was a business with unlimited potential,” says Siva. “I thought a resale was better because I didn’t need to start from the bare minimum. I could have a base of a £50,000 annual turnover.”

He decided to buy a Servicemaster Clean AAA resale, which raised challenges he’d not encountered in the food industry, particularly surrounding sales.

“I was very confident about the operation but I’d never sold anything. At KFC and Pizza Hut customers come to you, you don’t go to them,” says Siva. “But now, to grow the business, I had to go to the customer and sell them something. When I purchased the business, there was no money, so I
couldn’t have a salesperson. I was on my own.”

Operating solo, Siva’s objective was to double the business in 18 months, which he achieved in a much shorter period than expected - helped by the fact that he began to find sales ‘infectious’.

“The motivator was knowing that I was going to go and win somebody today - and winning is a habit, isn’t it?”

In fact, the original difficulty of conducting sales changed into the challenge of letting go of the responsibility once the business had reached a point where it was ready to take on sales staff.

However, Siva realised delegation was a necessary step to scaling the business he was looking to achieve, and fast forward to today, the business signs on average 20-25 new contracts each month.

Siva has also worked hard to bring down staff turnover, which is typically high in the cleaning industry.

“The tough part is getting the people and keeping them motivated,” confirms Siva. “Staff turnover in our industry can be over 240% and, in some areas, it can be more than 400%. Over the past three years, our average is just shy of 70%.”

He attributes taking a people-focused approach as the reason behind improving retention rates
beyond that of the wider industry. “I’m a big believer in people,” he says.

This philosophy has also been applied to the wider local community with many charitable initiatives in place across a range of projects and causes. Now Siva has created a business that has truly reached national success, he hopes to ensure giving back to the community remains a component of his approach moving forward.

“Now I’m successful, it’s my turn to give back,” he says. “I was a refugee. This country accommodated me. I’m grateful.”


Tanvi Roy, franchisee of Cake Box, Croydon, Tooting, and Tolworth

Tanvi Roy is one of Cake Box’s most established franchisees having opened three locations over the past 11 years. Now she has ambitions to open an other two locations over the next 12 months, and 10 stores by 2028.

However, despite her goals to scale, franchising was never originally on the cards for the London-based franchisee.

“I was born into an Indian family where they had two core principles,” she says. “One that was always drilled into me was I had to be successful, academically or professionally. And secondly, to be successful as a family person. So they wanted me to take up a role where I was able to work and provide for myself, but also be able to bring up a family as a woman in Indian culture.”

Following that trajectory, Tanvi graduated from Kingston University having read pharmaceutical sciences, landing big roles at well-known pharmaceutical companies.

However, in 2013, Tanvi and her husband decided they wanted to start a family, and to do that they wanted to create a better work-life balance.

“This was prior to COVID-19, before the new world of hybrid working came into play, so we decided that I would start a business to give us a flexible lifestyle to raise kids,” she explains.

Tanvi’s parents were supportive of her career move, but she says she faced judgment from the wider community for leaving behind a high salary medical job to open a shop – backlash that only motivated her to succeed in her new venture.

“We did a lot of research into various franchise companies and then that’s when we came across Cake Box. At the time it was a new business, but I noticed how quickly they’d grown to 20 stores in the UK,” she says.

Tanvi was already a Cake Box customer and genuinely loved the products, so she decided to take the leap and open her own store, while recognising the work that goes into launching a business before reaping the flexibility rewards.

For the first couple of years, Tanvi dedicated all her time to understanding every angle of the operation by rotating between all the roles, including making the cakes. She also kept an eagle-eye on the accounts, understanding every penny that went in and out of the business.

“I took a break after that to have my first child and came back and started looking for my second site,” she says. “Having our first child gave me the confidence that I could still manage the operations of the shop from home with a manager in place.”

The process of launching a second shop was easier because Tanvi could replicate an approach that she knew worked.

“Within two months of me having our second child, we opened our third site. Cake Box was really hands-on, really helpful, and supportive.”

Tanvi and her husband now successfully run three locations, affording the couple space to be present in their children’s lives.

However, scaling has also come with new challenges, which Tanvi and her team have had to learn from and adjust to.

“All our three sites were with one energy supplier who went bust,” she explains. “We thought that we negotiated low prices for 16 months and that would give us time to carry out cost efficiencies, but this was no longer the case. They put us on an extortionately high tariff which impacted on our bottom line.”

This experience, which Tanvi recalls as one of the hardest times for the business, taught a valuable lesson in weighing up the risks of having utility contracts with the same company for all three sites. She also became even more familiar with her financial figures.

“My priority was always to look after my team and persevere. I knew it was short-term so I didn’t want to make any knee-jerk reactions to cost-cutting,” says Tanvi, now more than a decade into her journey.

“One of the biggest things that I’ve learned is risks are there to be taken, but you’ve got to assess them,” Tanvi says.

“If I hadn’t taken a calculated risk, I would just be stagnating now. Take the leap of faith.”


Jaz Grewal, franchisee of TaxAssist, Leicester

Jaz Grewal, franchisee of TaxAssist in Leicester, has always been surrounded by entrepreneurship.

“I grew up working in my parent’s business importing furniture from abroad and selling it in shops dotted around the midlands,” he explains.

It was this early experience that developed a confidence in talking to customers and suppliers and eventually inspired Jaz’s ambitions to become a business owner.

“We were in a more deprived area to begin with and I saw my parents make a good amount of money and give us everything we wanted. Seeing that first hand drove me forward as well.”

Jaz went to university and did an industry year at PwC – one of the prestigious big four – where he began his chartered accountancy exams.

“I didn’t really enjoy the corporate life,” he says. “I preferred working with smaller businesses and speaking to people directly, whereas I was mainly speaking to finance functions. However, it was a great training ground in terms of me developing my communication skills and qualifications, and then bringing that to small businesses so I can provide more value to them.”

After graduating, Jaz felt the best way to provide this support was by setting up his own business – and franchising with TaxAssist (which has several franchisees in their 20s) provided the guidance he knew he wanted.

“I think I could have done it on my own, but I wouldn’t have progressed as quickly. Franchising is a really good way for me to get my foot in the door and start at a young age,” says Jaz.

The mentorship and 200-person strong support centre offered by the brand has been intrinsic to Jaz’s efforts to build his business, with hopes of scaling in the near future.

“I’m 27 years old now, it’s allowed me to build a business that I didn’t think I’d have a value of at this age,” he confirms.

A differentiating factor in the brand’s franchise offering has been its shopfront premises, which Jaz says brings in about 30% of new business.

“We’re on one of the busiest roads in Leicester so there’s thousands of cars driving by every single day. You can only really get that by having a billboard all the time.”

However, Jaz hasn’t underestimated the importance of repeat business and word of mouth, building a community of small businesses across the city.

“We’ve managed to build up a lot of Google reviews and our online reputation is good. I’ve built a very good network here in Leicester.”

This customer service is what Jaz puts at the centre of his business philosophy, offering more than just form-filling services with financial advice and tech-driven insights – something he feels his parents would have benefitted from as business owners when he was growing up.

“It’s paid dividends because a lot of our new clients are just referred to us from existing clients,” says Jaz. “It’s all about providing a great service and exceeding clients’ expectations.”

Creating such a positive client and staff culture is one of Jaz’s biggest achievements, but the journey in getting to there was difficult at times, especially as the recruitment market proved to be competitive.

“The first year was difficult because there were a lot of overheads,” Jaz explains. “You don’t have any income coming in and you just need to make it work. The second year was a lot better because we started to build our client base and our reputation in the local area.”

Despite these challenges, Jaz has been able to grow quickly and is now at the stage of beginning to delegate some of his original responsibilities so he can focus on opening a new location.

“We’re growing very rapidly at the location we’re at right now,” confirms Jaz. “I’m hoping that eventually we can get to the point where I can have a very senior person in this firm to just completely manage this location and then I’ll go and set up another location in another area, or potentially look at acquisitions.”

For Jaz, the franchising model has been the enabler of his entrepreneurialism and he believes others can replicate his success as long as they approach it with reasonable expectations.

“People who want to go into franchising sometimes assume you just invest the money and then it runs itself and you’re stacking paper. But that’s not the case. You have to put a lot of work into it,” he says.

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