Growing Pains: The Challenge for Franchising from Increasingly Complex Stakeholder Relationships

Franchising originated as an expansion strategy for a small business with a proven concept and the ambition to grow. For the start-up business today with expansion aspirations, franchising remains the most effective growth strategy. But franchising is no longer exclusively a small business strategy. Somewhere along the way franchising got big. Inevitably, with growth comes growing pains. This article addresses a particular challenge in the transformation of franchising - that of increasingly complex relationships for all stakeholders posed by the increasing influence of private equity in contemporary franchising.