The Biggest Mistakes Franchisors Make When Going International
Ultimately, most franchise brands want to dominate their domestic market and expand to foreign shores, but it’s a process that is replete with pitfalls and mistakes
Without international expansion, a franchise brand can never truly become a behemoth. While it’s entirely possible to grow a domestic franchise group or brand that produces revenues of $1bn plus, most brands will not sit satisfied with dominating their domestic market. As long as there are markets and customers to capture, businesses will continue to sail to new shores.
Quite naturally, everything that makes up a brand and the processes that allow it produce a product or provide a service, are inevitably informed by the culture of the country it’s based in. Respecting a different country’s culture and way of doing business is essential to achieve any form of success.
Walmart sold its majority stake in Seiyu, a Japanese retail brand because Japanese consumers associate the constant messaging of ‘cheap prices’ with low quality. It’s difficult to understand from an insular perspective, but without localizing messaging and operations, brands can suffer nightmares abroad.
