Considering Running Franchisees Alongside Your Existing Corporate Stores? Key Factors to Ensure Success

Running franchisees alongside existing corporate stores can be an effective strategy for expanding your brand and business. However, achieving success requires strategic planning and careful management. I have worked with clients who struggled to effectively manage their franchise operations due to insufficient resource allocation and budget planning. As a result, they were unable to address the span of control challenges that arise when overseeing both corporate stores and franchisee networks.

Here’s what to consider when running a parallel strategy:

Resource Allocation

Managing both franchise and corporate stores requires smart resource allocation. You'll need a balanced approach to staffing, support, and resources to ensure both business models function smoothly. Ensure you have the capability to manage and support the growth of both store types without overstretching your capacity.

Brand Consistency

Brand consistency is essential when operating both franchisee and corporate locations. Your franchisees need to follow the same operational standards, and the customer experience must be uniform across all locations. Maintaining consistency ensures your brand remains strong and recognisable. If you need help maintaining brand identity and consistency, don’t hesitate to reach out—we can connect you with the right partners.

Support Structure for Franchisees

Franchisees require ongoing training, support, and guidance to manage their businesses successfully. It’s essential to have a structured support system in place for franchisees, providing them with the necessary tools to excel. This is a major responsibility for franchisors, and ensuring your support framework is robust is key to long-term success.

Legal Compliance

Franchisors must comply with legal regulations, especially when managing both corporate stores and franchise locations. This includes ensuring all franchise documentation, disclosures, and agreements and specific purpose funds are compliant with local laws. At Bane Enterprises, we spend a lot of time helping clients navigate compliance and disclosure requirements with ease.

Financial Considerations

Operating both franchise and corporate stores will require significant financial investment. You'll need funding to support the initial development of franchise locations and ongoing operational costs. Balancing the financial needs of both strategies is crucial to avoid draining your resources and to ensure both areas of the business remain profitable.

Benchmarking Performance

Running a combination of corporate and franchise stores offers the opportunity to benchmark performance. By comparing corporate store performance with that of franchisees, you can identify areas of improvement and ensure that both corporate and franchised locations uphold brand standards. Competitive comparison helps to drive continuous improvement, which will elevate the overall performance of your network.

My Final Thoughts

Expanding your business with a dual strategy of franchisees and corporate stores offers significant growth potential, but it requires careful planning and execution, not to mention cash reserves to fund the management of both sides of the business. By focusing on resource allocation, brand consistency, franchisee support, legal compliance, financial readiness, and benchmarking, you can create a seamless operation where both models thrive.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively manage a parallel franchise and corporate store strategy, feel free to reach out. We’re always here to help.

Bio - Barry Money, Founder - Bane Enterprises

For the first ten years of Barry’s career, he consulted in global franchise standards and led significant transformation and innovation projects.

Barry has diverse corporate experience across multiple disciplines including sales, marketing, customer service, product management, export, quality assurance, engineering, IT and supply chain with full accountability for P&L.

At the end of Barry’s corporate career, where he earned the nickname “Goliath Slayer,” Barry transitioned to the C-Suite. Barry Money is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a C-Suite professional, with an MBA in entrepreneurship.

Barry has held director, board member, CEO and leadership positions in start-ups, NFPs, Founder-operated entities, industry peak bodies and commercial organisations. 

He held a leadership role at Australia’s largest franchise group, where he was instrumental in driving disruption and growth.

Barry has worked in franchised industries, franchise consulting companies and some of the largest franchised brands globally.

After many years living and working all around the world, he is fluent in Japanese, French, German and conversant with several other languages.

A dynamic, results-driven leader who prides himself on lateral, entrepreneurial thinking and creativity, Barry is renowned for developing and fostering strong teams and a collegiate spirit.

Barry Money now heads up Australia’s ethical, efficient, effective, end-to-end choice for franchising solutions, Bane Enterprises.

Contact details

E: online@baneenterprises.com

Franchising and Corporate Store Co-Existence