#6-EN-To Franchise in an intelligent way-Avila Business Centers VideoPodcast

Avila Business Center VideoPodcast

This year edition of Expo Franchise, in Lisbon, revealed once again to be an excellent support initiative to entrepreneurship, at a time where there is a crescent tendency of professionals to bet on the start up of their own businesses. “The entrepreneurship does not depend of the crisis nor of economical cycles, depends on good ideas”: This declaration of João Carvalho, CEO of MELOM, start-up brand awarded this year by the Franchising Information Institute, represents the state of mind of companies which do not fear to invest, namely on business models already tested, and as it’s the case of franchised brands. Nowadays, the labour precariousness is a reality and, according to the Franchising Information Institute, the major part of this year visitors presented a profile oriented towards the creation of their own employment and with a higher qualification level, in comparison with previous years. According with the last Census made by this Institute, the activity sector which has grown the most is Services, representing 52% of the brands (in 1999, this sector represented only 28%). It is precisely in the Services sector that brands have betted on innovating formats which result in efficiency gains and fixed costs reduction for the Franchisors. Several international case studies demonstrate that the Virtual Office has been a fairly valid option for franchised companies to start up their activity. In Spain, one the success case has been the brand “myCenter”, in the financial advisory area: the franchisors do not need a permanent Office; they develop their work from home and have the support of a Business Center which guarantees them a distant secretariat, personalized telephone answering and occasional use of meeting rooms. These are the major advantages of the Virtual Office: flexibility, costs reduction and focus on the core business. In Portugal, brands like Home Instead, in the domiciliary support area, and Publipan, in the advertising supports area, are excellent examples of brands which are expanding their Franchising network using, namely, the Virtual Office: this way, they can offer their franchisors a low cost solution, where the major part of the investment is resumed to entry rights and royalties, using a Premium service which allows them to separate their personal life from Professional, use an address for the head Office, meeting and work rooms, as well as a personalized telephone answering 24 hours/day. An intelligent idea which can be applied independently from the times of crisis and economical cycles.