The Franchisor’s Team: Preparing for Network Growth

A profitable company-owned outlet does not necessarily mean your business is ready to open several franchisee outlets at once. That requires a team with clear responsibilities and spare capacity. Before entering the franchise market, it is worth answering a practical question: how many launches can your business handle, and who will be responsible for each one?

1. Separate outlet management from network development

Start with a list of tasks, rather than by hiring a franchise director. In your existing business, staff serve customers, manage shifts and deal with day-to-day operational issues. Bringing franchisees on board creates a separate stream of work: assessing projects, preparing for openings, transferring know-how, approving decisions and supporting partners.

If you simply assign all of this to the manager of your company-owned outlet, the tasks will start competing for attention. An urgent franchisee query will distract the manager from running a shift, while problems during that shift will delay a partner’s opening. You therefore need to allocate working time to each network function in advance, even if there is no dedicated position yet.

Create a table with four columns: task, outcome, person responsible and deputy. For example, a launch-readiness review should result not in ‘opening discussed’, but in a recorded decision with a list of outstanding actions.

Identify at least the following functions:

• coordinating launches and managing dependencies between stages;
• organising knowledge transfer and checking staff readiness;
• providing legal support and keeping records of rights granted;
• managing the financial records relating to partners;
• handling routine queries and referring complex issues to specialists.

This is a list of roles, not a mandatory staffing structure. One person can cover several functions, provided their combined workload fits within that person’s working hours.

2. Appoint a process owner and define their authority

Each launch should have one coordinator. They do not need to train staff or review legal documents personally. Their job is to maintain an overview: what is complete, what is delayed, who needs to make a decision and how any delay affects subsequent steps.

Define separately which decisions the coordinator can make independently. For example, they may be able to reschedule a working meeting, but not change the company’s commitments, promise additional services or authorise use of the brand beyond the agreed terms. Exceptions must be approved by an authorised person and formally recorded, rather than left scattered across different employees’ messages.

In Russia, Chapter 54 of the Civil Code provides the legal framework for commercial concession agreements, the legal structure used for franchising. Under Article 1027, the parties to such an agreement may be commercial organisations or individual entrepreneurs. The law does not require a separate legal entity to be established specifically to manage a franchise: building an internal team and setting up a separate management company are different decisions.

If you do establish a separate Russian limited liability company (OOO), check in advance who owns the relevant rights and on what legal basis the new company will grant rights to partners. Calling it a ‘management company’ does not itself confer that authority. Under Article 1028 of the Civil Code, the grant of the right to use a bundle of exclusive rights under a commercial concession agreement must be registered with Rospatent, Russia’s intellectual property authority. Appoint an employee to oversee this stage and retain the supporting documents.

You can outsource specific tasks to an external lawyer or contractor. However, someone within your team must still be responsible for setting the brief, accepting the completed work and ensuring deadlines are met.

3. Calculate your team’s capacity

Your franchise sales plan cannot be developed in isolation from the launch schedule. Several signed agreements can create a simultaneous peak in demand, even if staff have spare time when their workload is averaged across the month.

Divide the work into three groups: one-off preparation of the network, launching each new partner’s business and providing ongoing support to outlets already trading. Then estimate the time required for each role. Use the actual time spent on your own openings and trial handovers of processes, rather than relying solely on managers’ initial expectations.

A practical calculation is:

Workload for each role = time spent on existing partners + time spent on new openings + internal tasks + contingency allowance.

The contingency allowance covers repeat approval rounds, staff absences and complex queries. Base its size on observations of your own operations: there is no universal benchmark for every franchise.

Check not only the monthly total, but also the busiest weeks. If one specialist needs to take part in several openings at once, spare capacity in the accounts department will not make up for that shortfall. Your capacity is determined by the most overloaded critical role.

Use the results to set an internal limit on simultaneous launches. Once you reach it, agree realistic dates with prospective franchisees in advance, before making commitments your team cannot fulfil.

4. Test coordination before expanding the team

Run an internal launch rehearsal: take one project and pass it through each person responsible in sequence. Check whether the next employee receives all the information they need and understands what action to take. This exercise reveals gaps in coordination without hiring people ‘just in case’.

Maintain a single task register. For each task, it is enough to record the partner, person responsible, deadline, status and reason for any delay. A group chat can help communication, but it should not be the only place where decisions are recorded.

At regular operational meetings, track overdue tasks, repeat queries and cases where an issue comes back because the handover information was incomplete. If delays stem from unclear authority, fix the decision-making process first. If the process is clear but there are consistently too few working hours available, redistribute the work or expand the team.

Practical takeaway: before actively recruiting franchisees, assign responsibilities, test task handovers and set a limit on simultaneous openings. Grow at a pace that allows your team to deliver on its promises to partners.