Entrepreneur India – July 2019

9292 l l ENTREPRENEURENTREPRENEUR l l JJUULY 2019LY 2019

F

ranchising is

essentially a

highly flexible

strategic model

for businesses

looking to scale

up operations. The probability

of success in such a scenario

is essentially dependent on

external stakeholders – mainly

customers – and their needs.

In light of this, an empathetic

and creative solution-based

approach to problem-solving

is required. Each business and

industry is unique in terms of

audience or consumers. There

has been enough evidence of

this. The buying behaviour

or pattern of the technology

industry and that of food and

beverage cannot possibly be

the same. Similarly, there

are geographical, cultural,

emotional, and numerous other

factors that determine buying

behaviour.

In Sync with

Consumers

Empathising with consumers

helps understand a problem

from a perspective that

provides the most important

solution for a franchising

business – sales. It is simple:

no one understands your

problem better than you do.

Empathy helps derive all the

information to understand

the problem. It is what makes

‘design thinking’ human-

centric. Major brands like

Ericsson and the US Tax

Service have used this school

of thought to their benefit.

The design thinking holds

a much larger significance

for franchise brands. For

franchises, each outlet or

store or restaurant or location

can be unique. McDonald’s

not only has a different menu

for India, the marketing

of different burgers is on

different scales in different

regions of the country. This

is for one simple reason and

that is diversity. People are

different everywhere. It is

easy to pick franchise brands,

especially in a diverse country

like India, who have attempted

to standardise their offerings

and failed miserably. It

accounts for a large portion of

failures in the industry.

Food for Thought

From as early as junior school

and pre-school education,

THE DESIGN

THINKING

FORMULA

kids are shown the empathy

way of learning. A research

subject at Franchise India

recalls an exercise from back

in the third grade where the

literature teacher allowed

students to frame questions

based on excerpts from

stories. “It helped me think

like a teacher, and ultimately

formulate better answers,”

he said. An education-based

franchise network named

‘Engineering for Kids’ has

successfully incorporated

this method to not only

help their network grow,

but also help their students

develop advanced cognitive

abilities for their age. A

design-thinking framework

underpins the classes for

that age group, from ‘Let’s

Make Toys’ to ‘Widgets and

Gadgets’. There is very little

evidence as to how effective

design thinking is for

classroom education.

However, EFK’s model

has physical involvement

of kids in learning. They

enable explorative play that

stimulates independent

discovery. This facilitates

information consumption

and experience. The solution

here that makes it an

effective design thinking

model is that of learning

through experience. Since

the audience or consumer

demographic here are

impressionable minds,

scientific data can be a

reliable source of behavioural

understanding. Most of the

data available is limited

in terms of research,

analysis and inference. For

educational franchises like

EFK to succeed in the field

of franchising, ad-hoc or

local research combined with

design thinking is the right

way to go. In conclusion,

successful franchise brands

make an effort to empathise

with consumers they intend

to serve before setting up

shop.

guruspeak

GAURAV MARYA, Chairman,

Franchise India Holdings Limited

Successful franchise brands are those which make an

effort to understand the needs of the customers in minute

detail and work out business strategies accordingly.

EMPATHISING WITH CONSUMERS HELPS

UNDERSTAND A PROBLEM FROM A PERSPECTIVE

THAT PROVIDES THE MOST IMPORTANT SOLUTION

FOR A FRANCHISING BUSINESS - SALES