Defining your franchise territories, preventing disputes among franchisees and fine-tuning your franchise services all require location intelligence.
Location intelligence combines massive sets of data and generates actionable insights plotted on an intuitive map. Using this, you can give franchisees the information needed to maximise profitability.
How can franchisors use location intelligence to fine-tune franchise territories?
Location intelligence has numerous applications when it comes to positioning your franchise territories.
Market analysis
Market analysis should define your franchise positioning.
With location intelligence, you can take a more strategic approach towards expanding your franchise empire.
Combine competitor data with social media analytics and customer persona information to plot your area of operations, move into new territories or increase focus on a specific area.
For each region, you can establish how many franchises you might need to meet demand, and where best to place them in order to maximise profitability.
Over time, you can instantly generate new reports to check whether the intelligence you had at the time is still accurate. This can help you adapt your services and marketing, as well as tweak your franchise territories.
Territory disputes
Defined franchise territories are crucial for franchisees. 91% of successful franchises are situated in a defined geographical territory.
Territory disputes can easily cause friction between franchisees, resulting in operational disruption and – in some cases – legal action.
But, with location intelligence, territory disputes become a thing of the past. By combining data relating to the following variables, you can divide your area of operations into clearly defined territories, and offer exclusive or protective rights to franchisees:
· Local demography
· Customer addresses
· Customer behaviour (where they shop, how they travel to work etc.)
As customers move to or from a territory, or as their buyer behaviour changes over time, you can continue to accurately track customer numbers and serviceable addresses. In this way, you can adjust your territories, or provide franchisees with quantifiable evidence that they are still divided fairly.
Franchise designation
Rather than adapting proven franchise models, many businesses are now choosing to diversify their service by opening affiliate stores in relevant areas with a slightly different focus.
A good example of a business taking this route is Pret A Manger. At the start of summer 2016, the brand opened its first ‘Veggie Pret’. The model is now set to be rolled out to all relevant locations nationwide.
Using location intelligence, you could find out how buyer tastes are different in specific areas.
You could use local demography data to predict whether there’s likely to be a higher concentration of vegetarians within a specific area. Then, back up your findings by analysing social media for posts relating to vegetarian food in the locality.
Location intelligence is essential for effectively managing your franchise portfolio. By collating and quickly analysing extensive data sets using advanced mapping software, you can gain the insights you need to fine-tune your franchise territories.
Discover how Periscope® can help you find the highest performance locations for your franchise partners.