Sean T. Ngo, managingdirector of Vietnam Franchises (VF), a leading franchising and licensingconsulting company with offices in Vietnam and Singapore revealed toVIR last week that VF now were in discussions with multiple franchiseesin several countries including Vietnam who were interested in brandsincluding Ace Hardware, Denny’s, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, TheVitamin Shoppe, Round Table Pizza, Texas Chicken, Rita’s Italian Ice,Kenny Roger’s Roasters, and the Manhattan Fish Market.
Denny’s is the number one family restaurant brand in the world and inthe top 10 US franchises according to Entrepreneur magazine. So far, thebrand has over 2,100 branches internationally and attracts about 26million customers every month.
The Vitamin Shoppe, nutrition foodproduct retail chain, listed on the New York Stock Exchange has over500 stores worldwide.
Round Table Pizza, the number one pizza chain in California, has 500 stores in the US, the Middle East and Asia.
Texas chicken, one of the world biggest fast food outlets attractsmore than three million customers every week with 1,700 stores in 45nations and territories.
Rita’s Italian Ice was voted the leadingtrans-fat free speciality ice cream franchise in the US by EntrepreneurMagazine and in the top 25 franchises by the Wall Street Journal.
Ngo added that the key to acquiring good foreign franchises was havinga successful track record in business and the infrastructure toleverage into franchising, including talented people, through anunderstanding of local market conditions, and good communication skills.
“All of our franchise brands offer only master or area franchiserights and expect franchisees to develop from 10 to 50 units, dependingon the franchise. This means having financial capital of 1 to 10million USD,” said Ngo.
Many established foreign brands havegreat potential in markets like Vietnam. Foreign brands such as KFC,Lotteria, Pizza Hut, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Domino’s Pizza havedone well. This is where careful selection of franchisees is criticalto ensure long-term success.
Ngo said he believed that the mostcommon reasons why franchises failed was often due to an inefficientsupply chains, the difficulties in finding affordable great locationsand limited unit growth due to under-capitalisation. Many franchiseeshave a history of selecting poor locations for their stores andimplement ineffective or insufficient marketing. Attracting and keepinggood people has also been a major problem for many franchisees,resulting in abnormally high employee turnover, decreased productivityand morale, and increased training and recruitment costs.
Thelatest figures from the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported thatthere were just over 100 foreign franchise systems registered in Vietnamas of December 2013. These franchise chains mainly originated from theUS, Australia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, HongKong, Canada and the Philippines.
According to VF, franchising inVietnam continues to grow by leaps and bounds when compared to theregion, with 30 percent growth average annual growth in terms of thenumber of new brands entering the market. While the franchising marketis still quite small compared to regional markets, for example, thePhilippines has over 1,500 franchise chains, Vietnam continues to be thefastest growing franchise market in ASEAN.-VNA