Franchising a firm is certainly not a good idea for all business owners. The decision to duplicate your hard earned success over a wide geograph area and to give away every day control is a awkward thing for some entrepreneurs. In most situations there will have been a lot of hard work and effort put into the company and it is sometimes difficult to imagine the benefits of dividing that up and handing out control.

 It is also not feasible for every business to fit into a Franchise model. The business should be healthy, easily repeated and also easily carved up into segments in order for it to meet the criteria. It also needs to have good profit margins as if it is franchised these will need to give profit for both the franchisee and the franchisor in satisfactory amounts.

If all of this falls into place however there are some very good reasons, particularly in the current economic climate, why it may be a very good idea. First of all, for any organisation looking to expand a usual requirement is funds, usually in the form of a loan from the bank. As is all too clear, business lending has not managed to improve from it’s recent issues and business lending is still very low. This means that a lot of growth plans are simply not happening. The Franchise option however requires very little financial investment on the part of the franchisor thus meaning that it is one of the most possible routs to growth in the current circumstances.

There is also a glut of highly skilled individuals currently boosting the unemployment figures, having been made redundant at some point within the last year. A lot of these people are from highly skilled industries, and offer much in terms of business management abilities. They are also keen to be more in control of their own destiny and may enjoy the opportunity of running their own firm and therefore considering a franchise for sale.

The franchisor should be glad, after a good selection process, to leave the day to day running of the individual franchises to these people in the knowledge that they have the commitment, ambition and aptitude to deliver. It also means that some of the less attractive sides of running a business can be given to them, freeing up the franchisor.

Finally the franchise direction offers a rapid expansion route, far faster than opening other outlets in the full control of the main organisation. So rather than being held back by the current economic circumstances a Franchise opportunity for your organisation could be the way to take advantage of the recession and allow your business to move on to the next phase.