Studies show that franchising industry is expected to quadruple between 2012 and 2017. There is scope for Franchising industry to contribute almost 4% of India GDP in 2017 (assuming 6% Y-o-Y GDP growth between 2012 and 2017), growing from a currently estimated contribution of 1.4 percent of GDP. This is also expected to create job opportunities (including both direct and indirect) for an additional 11 million people by 2017.
Education and training are one of the main areas which are expected to grow rapidly in this franchising model. But franchising an educational service isn’t easy as franchising a retail outlet or a food chain since here the franchisor offers a set of skills which required high human effort and management.
Here are some tips to consider when setting-up a franchise business growth option for an educational training business.
- Make sure that course you offered has a good market demand now and in future
- Franchisor has to provide the updated syllabus and all other materials/training regarding the course they offer and help the franchise in localizing the course if required
- Advisable to hire local staffs/trainers to remove the language problem
- Royalty from an enrolment has to be fixed scientifically since the number of enrolment isn’t high as a retail outlet
- Keep same course name, certificate, service, exam and placement assistant to maintain the uniformity across students and franchisees
- The franchisor has to provide training to the franchise to manage and monitor admission and students in franchisee since managing people is really hard than selling a product.
- It’s required to provide the documents such as franchisee net worth forum, disclosure document, franchise agreement and franchise operation manual for the smooth running
- Provide maximum marketing support to franchisees to reduce cost and keep uniformity in all marketing communications
- Franchise business models like Direct Franchising, Area Development and Master Franchising are able to use in growth plan of educational institutions.
- Remember that a franchisor will be an educator, trainer, psychologist, and perpetual hand-holder to its franchisees.
Franchise option will help you in enables a speedy growth. Meanwhile, there should be a strong, professional and systematic management system is required to manage the franchisees and maintain the same level of quality across the franchisees.
If you are unable to plan, create the tools and implement the franchise system on your own, then you should have professionals. Hiring professionals help you in thinking out of the box and ensuring that “outside perspective” along with your own ideas can make your business unique. At Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting, we assist clients in similar engagements.
