Not getting the results you want from your franchisees? Being overtaken by competing franchises? Finding it difficult to get new franchisees on board? You need to make some improvements – and fast. But where will you get the best ROI (return on improvement)?

Franchises are different from non-franchised businesses. By their very nature, they have more layers. These layers make problems with a franchise business more complex to correct than problems in a non-franchised business. 

The question “Why isn’t the franchise performing?” may have a number of different answers, depending on which layer you look at the business from. It’s common for franchise management to blame the franchisees, the franchisees to blame franchise management, and the customers blame the franchise’s business model for choosing not to buy from them. But blame will never solve the problem. Ultimately, the solution rests with you, franchise management, because only you have the power to alter the business model and the way you develop your franchise network and culture.

As a former franchise manager and franchisor, I know franchising inside out. I understand what works and what doesn’t in franchising. And I use two different tools to assess my clients’ strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities that are available to them and the threats they are facing. The first tool is going to surprise you.

It’s entering your local or regional franchise awards.

In 2016, one of my clients won the Supreme Award in the New Zealand Franchise Awards. Yes, I hear you say, but that franchise must have been a top performer. Of course, that’s true, but it wasn’t always that way. Some years before, I had entered my client into the Awards and they had only won a more minor award. But most Franchise and Business Awards use the Baldrige Business Excellence framework to judge their winners. And we had used Baldrige as a framework for evaluating my client’s business and identifying what we had to do to improve the business.

The framework sums up the stages from leadership to business results, and stresses the importance of learning, creativity and innovation at every stage, but misses a few critical elements. Where is the customer in all this? Buried right down toward the end of the process, almost an afterthought.

That’s why I also use another business improvement tool, Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas. As you can see from the chart below, the BMC puts the customer at the heart of the business and seeks to create a value proposition – the way the business provides value to customers. The right-hand part of the chart describes how value is delivered to customers through relationships and sales channels, while the left-hand part describes the key activities, resources and partners required to achieve that.   

But the Business Model Canvas isn’t perfect. It's missing some of the key features of other strategy methodologies — the importance of leadership and learning, for example, and external external influences such as market forces and competition. And because of franchising’s many layers, the BMC doesn’t really meet all the needs of franchises. Franchisors are unique because they have two customers — their franchisees, who are also their channel to market, and their franchisees’ customers, the end users of the businesses’ products and services. One of their greatest challenges is how to create value for both their franchisees and their end users, and still have something in the business for themselves.

The No Ordinary Business Model Canvas for Franchisors is different from other BMCs in these ways:

If you need to improve your franchise — and let's face it, who doesn’t? — I can help. In more than 20 exciting years, I have been at the forefront of tremendous innovation and change across industries as diverse as banking, FMCG, retail and construction. I have combined my wealth of experience as a senior corporate executive, franchise director, business owner and consultant together with my proven track record in business improvement to meet the changing needs of the franchise industry.