Ryan is an attorney and valuation specialist residing in Chicago. He chronicles his thoughts and research on FranchisePundit.com. You may reach him by email ryanknoll@gmail.com or mobile telephone 312-212-3423.
NexCen Brands is the franchisor for Great American Cookies, MaggieMoo’s, Marble Slab Creamery, Pretzelmaker and Pretzel Time. The recently opened up a research and development facility for their restaurant concepts. At first glance, this looks great, despite it being a tiny 1,200 square feet. My nitpicking then creeped in. Here are a few issues I see:
- The manager of the R&D center is the VP of Plant Operations. I would much rather see someone with an innovation, marketing or chef background, not someone who coordinates a warehouse or manufacturing facility.
- The article states that the R&D facility is “supported” by NexCen’s top vendors – bread, chocolate and dairy vendors. Ummmmm…..bias? It’s a great deal for franchisor NexCen who gets their vendors to sponsor the facility and research, but do you think this will produce the best innovations for the franchisees? Will the vendors spend their time “innovating” their particular product offerings more into the menu?
I’m being hard on NexGen, I know. Hopefully the R&D facility will produce some winners, but the issues noted above make me believe NexGen chose the absolute cheapest way to create the image of R&D.
What’s the best way to create better and cheaper offerings, faster?
After professional research with customers and franchisees, you can identify promising ideas, develop them with your chefs, professionally test the ideas with customers, and repeat the process until you get a winner. Let your marketing, finance and purchasing teams have input. Then roll it out to franchisees.
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That’s being resourceful! There’s really nothing remarkable than getting the ideas and opinions of those people who play important roles in a business activity. Franchisees and customers indeed play major roles in the success of a franchise. On the part of the franchisees, great care should be exercised in choosing the right franchise. Imagine the number of franchise opportunities around. For a franchisee to succeed in this business, a process is to be conducted before decision is made. This process entails assessments, evaluations, gathering of information, and consultation with the experts and the experienced ones who are already in the franchise industry. Moreover, franchisees must refer to a comprehensive and success-proven franchise guide for the best steps to take in order to attain the right choice and sustainable success.