Franchising is the easiest and quickest way to grow a business beyond your personal capabilities. If you want to branch out but can only manage two or three stores by yourself, you can franchise your business and open up branches through your franchisees in different locations. Franchises thrive on replication as the same model is used at different locations. In most cases, this is the secret to their success because they offer a consistent experience to their customers.
Franchise replication is the process in which all the products, operations process, and marketing is replicated in every branch. There might be some alteration here and there, but there are very few differences between various branches of a franchise. This helps ensure that all of your customers know what to expect at every branch they visit, no matter where it is located. For example, you’ll experience the same flavours and ambience in a Starbucks in Melbourne as you would in Sydney or even New York.
Replication is successful because people find comfort in familiarity, especially if they’re in a new location and don’t know the best places and businesses in town. They’ll stick with franchise businesses that they have interacted with before rather than experimenting with new businesses. Here’s a brief glimpse of how the replication franchise model works:
Not all operations models can be easily replicated in all locations. For example, as a business owner and operator, you might have an instinctual understanding of certain marketing strategies or products. However, you need to translate that instinctual understanding onto paper to ensure that other branches of your franchise are equally successful. Before you start approaching franchisees, you need to develop operations process, products, and communications system that can be easily replicated in all of your branches, regardless of their location.
It’s important to be flexible in the franchise business so your operations process should be flexible enough to accommodate different locations and customer demands. They should be able to accommodate slight changes but still retain their unique identity and character. This helps them adjust to different locations easily. A great example of this is McDonalds. The company is known for its cheese and hamburgers and fries but when it became a global franchise, it had to make some adjustments like providing kosher or vegetarian options in different regions of the world.
It’s important to maintain the consistency of the brand image in all branches of the franchise so the marketing process should also be replicated. All branches should have the same decor, vibe, customer service characteristics, etc. Replication is essential if you want to maintain this consistency.
In the franchise world, people focus on replication instead of innovation in order to maintain brand value. However, you can leave some room for innovation as well because it will give you scope to grow in the local community. For example, a franchise fast food restaurant might include a local favourite dish or ingredient in their menu in order to fit in with the local industry well. You might also be able to respond better to the customer needs of a particular region if you have some space for innovation.
If you want to know more about franchise replication, or want some advice, feel free to get in touch with us at The Franchise Institute. You can call us on 1300 855 435 or fill in this contact us form and we’ll reply as soon as we can.
Thanks for reading,
The Franchise Institute Team
1300 855 435
