Franchising in Portugal: reducing dependence on the founder

A business may have loyal customers and strong results yet still depend too heavily on the person who founded it. Before expanding through a franchise network in Portugal, you need to establish whether someone else can run the operation without constantly calling the founder. The aim is not to sideline them, but to turn their experience into a capability the organisation can pass on and sustain.

1. Identify where the founder is indispensable

Start by observing actual decisions, rather than simply looking at the organisation chart. Over a period that reflects typical business activity, record the requests that reach the founder: exceptional discounts, difficult complaints, urgent orders, material choices or technical troubleshooting.

For each intervention, note four things:

• The reason: what problem required their involvement?
• The information: what did the founder know that nobody else did?
• The authority: was knowledge missing, or simply permission to make a decision?
• The consequence: what would happen if the founder were unavailable?

This distinction helps avoid a common but inadequate response: giving everyone more training. If a manager knows the solution but always needs approval, the problem lies in how authority is delegated. If nobody knows how to assess the situation, knowledge needs to be passed on or access to specialist expertise secured.

Pay particular attention to personal relationships. A supplier who only accepts urgent orders from the founder, or a customer who trusts only them, represents a dependency that will not disappear when a franchise agreement is signed.

2. Separate local, network-wide and exceptional decisions

Once you have mapped these dependencies, create a simple decision matrix. You do not need to start with a lengthy document: a table showing the situation, person responsible, limits of authority and escalation route can reveal the main bottlenecks.

Distinguish between three levels:

• Unit-level decisions: day-to-day management that falls to the local business owner, within their legal and contractual obligations.
• Network-wide decisions: matters requiring consistency, such as presentation standards or technical criteria for carrying out work.
• Exceptional decisions: situations with a significant impact on safety, reputation or legal compliance that require individual assessment.

For example, in a repair business, the founder may be the only person able to assess an unusual request. The answer is not to make every unit wait for their response. Instead, it may involve defining acceptance criteria, appointing an alternative technical lead and setting out when work should be declined or referred elsewhere.

Delegation does not mean controlling every choice a franchisee makes. A franchisee is a legally independent business owner. The matrix should distinguish between the standards needed to maintain a shared identity and the decisions that belong to the management of their own business.

3. Create alternatives to the founder’s personal availability

Every critical task should have someone responsible for it and a credible backup. Naming a stand-in is not enough: that person needs access to information, the skills and the authority to act.

Move essential contacts to shared business communication channels, with appropriate access permissions. Make sure important commercial terms are not recorded only in personal messages. Also check who can restore access to business tools, review incident histories and contact service providers if something goes wrong.

Next, observe how the business operates during planned absences by the founder. This is not about retesting the entire business concept, but specifically checking that decision-making continues. Start with routine situations and gradually increase autonomy without compromising safety or legal obligations.

Record what stalled, what was decided incorrectly and what was ultimately resolved through informal contact with the founder. That last category deserves attention: the operation may appear independent while still relying on someone whose role is invisible in its processes.

Use internal measures to assess progress: outstanding decisions, emergency interventions and recurring problems. There is no universal threshold for readiness. What matters is demonstrating that critical dependencies have sustainable solutions.

4. Align autonomy with Portugal’s legal framework

Portugal has no specific franchising law or mandatory register specifically for franchisors. Applicable legislation includes the general rules on contracts in the Portuguese Civil Code, competition rules and legislation governing the relevant business activity. Where standard contract terms are used, Decree-Law No. 446/85 is also relevant.

Freedom of contract, provided for in Article 405 of the Civil Code, allows the parties to structure their collaboration, but does not remove their duties of good faith. During negotiations, Article 227 is particularly relevant: do not present the organisation as able to operate independently if it relies on personal interventions you cannot guarantee for future units.

Seek a legal review to ensure the agreement reflects who provides support and how exceptional decisions are handled, without confusing assistance with direct management of the franchisee’s business. Avoid promising unlimited personal availability from the founder when your aim is to build a structure based on delegated responsibilities.

Practical takeaway: before recruiting franchisees, identify the decisions only the founder makes, assign alternatives and confirm that they work. A franchise network ready to grow needs knowledge that can be shared, not one permanently indispensable person.