Are there any areas of the franchise industry experiencing significant growth?

Brian Duckett writes:

Three areas spring to mind where our business, The Franchising Centre, is seeing most increased activity.

The first is the trend towards multi-unit franchisees where, perhaps surprisingly, there are several franchises where operating one outlet doesn’t produce a satisfactory return for a good franchisee. Having a minichain of three, five or even more outlets is a much more attractive business.

Moving on from here, there are now an increasing number of multi-brand franchisees with perhaps a number 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 they represent, why not?

Finally, there’s the trend towards multi-brand franchisors. Once a franchisor nears capacity in its home market, it has to consider whether to take its brand into international markets or 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 is chairman of The Franchising Centre, part of the world’s largest network of specialist franchise consultants.