Is franchising the future of global manufacture?

While franchising is very common in service industries, it is relatively unknown in manufacture. As manufacturing becomes truly global and companies source materials from around the world, business format franchising offers a viable alternative to more common methods of expansion. This paper presents some of the results of a three-year project assessing the potential of franchising in manufacturing. The main sections describe franchising and contrast it with other forms of global expansion, the types of manufacturing business which would be suitable for franchising and the steps in establishing a franchise operation.