“Franchising helps in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem for starting a sustainable business, youth empowerment, and new-age business ideas to grow.”

India tops the list of the fastest growing economies in the world for the coming decade and is projected to grow at 7.9% annually, ahead of China and the US, according to a Harvard University report. Despite this growth projection, the country’s defective education system may hamper future growth as its emerging workforce is unable to cope with the demands of a 21st century economy.

Countries like Thailand and Mexico, which didn’t invest in quality education, have struggled to maintain their growth, whereas a country like South Korea, which made significant investments in education,has become an innovative economy. India too might get trapped due to its lowquality education system if it doesn’t act with urgency to transform the system. The present education system doesn’t serve the needs of the current generation, much less the demands of the next. Besides, the Indian education system is designed in such a way that students are trained for jobs rather than entrepreneurship. When looking at recent data, one can conclude that although our country has enjoyed high growth this has largely been jobless economic growth.

In such a scenario, franchising can be a viable solution to unemployment. Franchising means going into business for yourself and not by yourself. In India there are lakhs of students that graduate every year and there is a huge gap in the job opportunities available.

The graduate degree doesn’t give you enough skills to find the right job. And with the latest technology in use, job cuts and multifunctional roles, employability is already diminishing. Franchising can be a great course of action here as the model has created a more structured way of doing business. Franchising can be a good option for those graduates who have been trying their luck for job opportunities.

Having set up your own business under the franchise model can be convenient and rewarding. Franchising helps in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem for starting and constructing a sustainable business, youth empowerment, and new-age business ideas to grow. Franchising has indeed come a long way in India. It contributes as much as USD 4 trillion to the world economy and around USD 35 billion to the Indian market. It offers modern ways to raise capital, helps in rapid penetration, provides an efficient way to combat operational challenges, makes brand-building quicker and convenient, helps accelerate growth in the market reputation of the company, and leads to economies of scale in input cost and marketing. It is a given fact that there always are many hopeful entrepreneurs looking for opportunities to start their own business and therefore the question is whether a resource pool can be formed or whether we can build an ecosystem to offer help to such willing talent get on their way to becoming successful business people. In my opinion, this can be possible through the route of franchising. In fact, the concept of franchising fits the Indian market very well and it has helped many entrepreneurs take the right decision of making the leap to set up their own independent ventures.

The market conditions are favourable for franchising in India and there are many factors supporting franchising. From the demand side, the factors include increasing consumption, growing preference for branded products, global exposure and the use of international brands, and the willingness to spend more. From the supply side, there is an increasing set of opportunitydriven competent entrepreneurs along with growing awareness of franchising as a business opportunity as well as a relatively low-risk profile along with quicker profit generation and return on investment.

Franchising has been identified as an area that could help establish a sustainable micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector in India. And, it has been proved time and again that MSMEs are the backbone of every economy across the globe. MSMEs in India employ about 117 million people, constituting 40% of the workforce, and a large percentage of those small businesses are through the franchising business format. Also, the government is working on ‘ease of doing business’ which will give the required push to the franchising sector in one way or the other. If the business environment improves, we expect to see franchising grow and create more job opportunities for people.

India has over a million new job seekers joining the labour market every year. And franchising is really a powerful engine for job creation. In fact, many members of the Indian Franchise Association and other bodies are already exploring new ways to empower small businesses and entrepreneurs in bridging inequality, creating prosperity and employment. There should be more programmes with a focus on skill development and how certain skills could be turned into sustainable micro franchises, thereby helping these franchisees to earn a living and removing them from the jobseeking market. This way, franchising can be a significant source of jobs, economic growth and new opportunities of doing business. This would, hopefully, substantially reduce unemployment.

“FRANCHISING CONTRIBUTE AS MUCH AS USD 4 TRILLION TO THE WORLD ECONOMY AND AROUND USD 35 BILLION TO THE INDIAN MARKET.”

Change is the only constant in a dynamic economy, which India currently can lay claim to. Buying a franchise could be the best decision you make in the Indian environment today. It has been a gateway to success for millions of people worldwide who have fulfilled their dreams of business ownership. Franchises play an integral role in supporting the local economy through job creation and the payment of taxes. This way, franchising would serve as a solution to the employment challenge that needs to be tackled as a matter of urgency.