Advantages and Disadvantages of Selling a Franchise

Starting a new business is not something you do on a whim. You will spend a lot of time researching the benefits and drawbacks of entrepreneurship and will have a lot of queries about it. Franchising appeals to many would-be entrepreneurs because it allows them to run a successful business without setting up a business. There are many advantages and disadvantages of starting a franchise for both franchisors and franchisees. The franchisee is a third-party buyer who buys the franchisor's brand rights (the brand owner). The franchisee pays the franchisor an initial franchise fee in exchange for the right to use the brand and regular franchise fees for marketing, royalties, and other expenses.

Advantages of Selling a Franchise

The initial component needed in order to start a franchise is 'capital'; the capital can be made available from the franchisees itself and thus no need for the franchisors to take out a loan. The most important actor that keeps the place running are the staff and employees in the franchise, and thereby their training becomes an essential aspect in the franchise's day-to-day operations. The franchisor only makes sure to give the technical and business knowledge to the franchisee at the start, thus the daunting task of the management, training and hiring of the staff falls on the shoulders of the franchisee. Moreover, in the longer run the franchisor faces minimal risk since the responsibility of taking the debt and liability is on the franchisee, thus the franchisor can focus on the bigger picture related to the overall success of the business.

When discussing the advantages that a franchisee has when opening a franchise, all the crucial information and training that makes any given franchise a success are duly provided by the franchisor for they need to ensure the preservation of their goodwill. This forms a part of comprehensive business assistance which includes brand, location, equipment, advertising plan and a structural business plan provided by the franchisor. This is commonly called 'turnkey business' in which everything that a buyer needs to start running the business immediately is already provided. Another advantage of franchise business is that a loyal customer base has already been made over the years and the people are already familiar with the brand name.

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Disadvantages of Selling a Franchise

Some significant disadvantages of a franchise for a franchisor are:

• Lack of control over business processes after franchising the business.
• There is always a risk that the franchisee may violate applicable laws and regulations.
• There is no guarantee that the brand would expand and generate a customer base.
• There are significant risks as to infringement of intellectual property and proprietary information.
• Training costs and liability for wrongs committed by the franchisee often pose risks.

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With the advantage of enjoying the franchisor's brand name, there come the checks and balances that the franchisee must deal with regularly. To be assured that the franchise runs smoothly and makes profits; will try to oversee the entire financial system that the franchisee operates. Thus, this might be restrictive of the autonomy of the financial powers of the franchisee. Therefore, the whole notion that the franchisee is his' boss' is not entirely true since we can see that the franchisee does not always enjoy individual control when it comes to implementing creative ideas in the business and have to comply to the strict interpretations of the regulations and standards by the franchisors in the franchise agreement.