As I scan all of the news reports, and anything to do with franchising throughout the United States, I see some Industrial Development Essay trends which are starting to emerge. I am noticing franchise attorneys talk about it, and I am observing franchise associations start to figure out how to best educate their members to take advantage of these future trends. Indeed, I am also watching the regulators carefully scrutinize several new game changing events. These are things that are happening right now, and they appear to not be short-term trends, but rather long-term changes in the industry.
Indeed, as a former franchisor, and also a franchising consultant, I would like to address four of these points, from my point of view. In other words, where I see all of this going from the perspective of a franchising company projecting out into the marketplace with hundreds or thousands of franchisees, and as a futurist type thinker, then you decide if you think my assessment is valid. Now then, here are the four points I’d like to address;
1. Social Networking
2. Smartphone Secondary Industry Payments
3. New Health Insurance Rules
4. Challenges with Funding, Expansion
Back in the year 2000, social networks didn’t exist, and neither did blogs. There were no text messages, and the smart phones back then would be considered dumb phones right now. However, I do recall challenges on Internet forums, as franchisees would give away proprietary information accidentally, or when disgruntled customers of one franchisee would get online, and trash a brand name hurting all of the franchisees in the entire system.
That was the beginning of some of the challenges. Today, one mistake from a franchisee can go viral on the Internet, YouTube, or throughout the social networks in hours, not days, weeks, or months. Therefore many franchisors feel the need to have social networking crisis teams. Even back in the day, I can remember working to put out fires online, nothing like it is today, as we just got around to it whenever we felt like it, or whenever we thought it was getting out of hand.
Social networking is now used by franchisees to get customers into their local locations, and also by franchisors to strengthen their brand name, find new franchisees to recruit, and even to offer discounts and coupons to all their franchised outlets. This trend will definitely continue, along with GPS smartphone based coupons, alerting customers that are near locations that there are special discounts right around the corner if they are interested.
And speaking of smartphones, and location based coupons, and alerts for those on customer reward programs with specific apps; those same customers will be able to pay with their smartphones. Many large companies are already doing this, and this trend will continue, and you can bet every retail franchise outlet or service company will offer apps in the very near future.
Next, there are some economic and political issues which are affecting franchising. For instance ObamaCare, and …
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