Manoeuvring the world of franchising and building a growth strategy for your restaurant business can be quite daunting. Among multiple options, the franchise or corporate owned & operated structure has the potential to play a big role in your restaurant’s growth strategy. However, choosing the right model for your hospitality business, along with the right consultancy to help you navigate is what can seal the deal.
Katch has a blazing track record of working with and observing many franchise and hospitality partnerships to help them achieve desired results. The Katch team expertise includes understanding the legal, IP, operations, and overall brand importance to help create the right market awareness and explore your brands potential with an international growth strategy.
Beginning with basics – what is franchising?
As defined by the International Franchise Association (IFA), “A franchise (or franchising) is a method of distributing products or services involving a franchisor, who establishes the brand’s trademark or trade name and a business system, and a franchisee, who pays a royalty and often an initial fee for the right to do business under the franchisor’s name and system.”
Your Katch checklist for franchising
Licencing – To ‘Katch’ the bull by its horns, the first and foremost thing to have in place is Franchise Licensing, which, as you progress to next stages will realise proves to be the absolute key to develop and navigate your restaurant brand.
Principal franchise partner strategy – A detailed outline of the franchise structure which includes corporate governance, marketing, advertising, as well as the growth strategy.
Territory analysis – A plan of what countries are good for your brand positioning and value.
Financial modelling – It is important to develop the right fee structure for franchising.
Brand trademark protection – One of the most important things to consider while franchising is brand protection by structuring the IP of your company correctly to reserve the brand trademarks and copyrights.
Brand guidelines – Building a comprehensive brand guideline, including the brand story and key messages, to ensure the brand integrity is maintained throughout is essential. Additionally, the document should also outline the tone of voice, use of logo, including placement, colour palette, typography with secondary fonts and type of accepted imagery.
Structure is the key
While hospitality consultancies offer advice on how to expand your business, it is often that business owners feel franchising can mean losing control of the business. Having worked with multiple hospitality consultants, we have found that doesn’t have to be the case. You may ask how? Well, structure is the key! Having a structured approach to franchising can ensure your brand is growing in the right direction. Katch has worked in the industry for over a decade and strategically grown brands to franchise level, including working on landlord packs, brand guidelines and operation manuals.
Why consider franchising?
By finding the right franchisees, ensuring the franchise is structured correctly, and opening in the right spaces, franchising can not only provide an effective growth strategy, but also afford business owners the luxury of a lucrative exit strategy.
Katch x Presman and Colard
F&B franchising during the Covid-19 pandemic was a hard market. Katch worked with Presman and Colard on their reputation management and introduce them to relevant clients in the market. While working with Presman and Colard Katch advised them on both market position across Europe as well as the Middle East. As their consultants, Katch conducted a brand audit, formulated their communication strategy, refreshed their social media pages, and advised on global franchises, including how to adapt their brand positions while applying the strategies to different countries.
Key take away
With a growth in emerging markets and an influx of independent brands taking centre-stage, the F&B industry among other sectors has displayed great potential for growth. In addition to taking a structured approach while working with the right consultancy, brands also need to be willing to adapt and pivot, whether due to economy or constraints of new market segments. For instance, countries in Asia utilise different platforms for social engagement or when content is translated for local market, might have a different meaning therefore, translations and intended applications in the local context needs to be considered.
Want to explore an international growth strategy to develop your current brand with an agency that knows what it’s doing? Get in touch with our team of consultants today.
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