Franchising a business is never easy. The process demands an exceptional amount of insight and a willingness to relinquish a degree of control to your new franchise partners. This model is growing rapidly both in terms of the number of businesses participating and the range of industries involved.
Read on to find out more about the risks of franchising a business and how location intelligence can keep you in control of what’s important.
What’s the risk when franchising a business?
An insightful article published in Forbes last month set out the dilemma company bosses face when franchising a business:
“[Bosses of] new entrants to the franchise community are generally relegated to a wide range of consultants sharing their experience and/or an attorney providing legal input.”
However, through developing your business, you have generated a wealth of knowledge to draw on and when leveraged effectively you can use these insights to optimise profitability for both you and your franchise partners.
How does location intelligence give you more control?
Location intelligence software gives you a host of new capabilities that can help you maintain a degree of control when franchising a business:
Location planning
Location planning is a critical aspect of establishing a franchise. With location intelligence software you can identify who your customers are and where they live/work. This analysis can include a high level of detail calculating a variety of aspects, such as:
- Demographic information (including age, income, education level and much more)
- Transport infrastructure (including nearby transport hubs, drive times and areas with high footfall)
- Competitor/complementary business influence (how nearby businesses impact profitability, and where these businesses are based)
Using this insight, you can identify new franchise markets, adapt your service offering or analyse why some franchise partners are performing better than others then with Periscope® you can present your findings to your franchise partners by overlaying them on your own corporate, secure version of Google Maps.
Territory allocation
By using Google Maps to present your findings, you can acquire an at-a-glance overview of your franchise empire.
- This is vital for fairly allocating territories.
- You can establish the proportion of your target audience living within a certain proximity (either geographically, or in terms of travel time).
- Then, rather than allocating a radius from a single point or arbitrary shape, you can outline precise franchise territories that take account of the same factors customers are likely to consider.
- In this way, location intelligence helps prevent and/or overcome any territory disputes you might face. It also helps ensure that each franchise location is the correct size and offers the right services for the local market.
Marketing
Location intelligence also gives you access to marketing insights that you can share with your franchise partners.
- Using your new-found knowledge of your target audience, you can establish what relevant products or services to promote in specific franchise territories.
- You can also provide franchise partners with ideas for tailoring their messaging and establish where to position your marketing resources for maximum effect.
- In this way, you can help your franchise partners attract as many customers as possible, as well as ensuring their marketing budget is utilised effectively.
Before you commence the process of franchising a business make sure you understand how location intelligence could help keep you in control by giving your franchisees everything they need to optimise profitability with Periscope®.