All About Franchising

Why Franchising?

It may not be immediately obvious but franchising is an extraordinarily successful business growth strategy. It has it origins in the USA and some say the seed was sown by Isaac Singer in the 1860 when he needed a way rapidly to expand his service and repair network for his famous sewing machines. He established a licensing scheme although there was more to it than that. Singer experimented with expanding his initial scheme to be a "package" covering other things including sales. Some say Martha Matilda Harper invented franchising (see video - left). She certainly introduced some key ideas but that was after Isaac Singer.

However, many would credit the creation of the modern franchise to Ray Kroc the founder of the McDonalds franchise. Ray realised that he had to totally systematise the business if it was to be grown using the franchise method. With a completely systematised burger restaurant he was able to endlessly replicate a winning formula which mean that customers got a consistency of product and service at every outlet. Each Franchisee had a very high chance of success.

So, in broad terms, all you have to do to build a successful franchise is follow Ray Kroc's examples. Unfortunately, many would-be franchisors completely miss the point and think they can get away with not putting the work in to make the franchise systematised, and able to work consistently and predictably well. They often get away with it... for a while. At Replico we have a series of methods and tools for building franchises that just keep on working better and growing well.

Other alternatives

Franchising is just one of a number of ways of achieving the next level of growth for your business that are based on replicating all or part of it. Other possibilities for relatively rapid business expansion include exporting, licensing, product licensing, agency and distribution networks. Whatever the framework, the keys to success are largely the same.