The Guide to Territory Optimization for Franchisors

Franchise Territory Optimization: Design Profitable Territories for Sustainable Growth

If you’re a franchise business trying to grow from a few locations to a few dozen (or more), you need a well-planned expansion strategy. And a crucial element of that strategy is your method of designing franchise territories.

Franchise territory design done right will help you expand your brand and ensure profitability for both the franchise system and your franchisees. Poor territory design could result in oversaturation of a market and cannibalization between franchise locations. Internal competition between franchise locations will not only hurt your bottom line, but it can also lead to franchise closures and even lawsuits.

Protecting Your Business, Supporting Franchisees

Franchise territory planning not only fosters franchisee success but also ensures compliance with Federal Trade Commission guidelines, including Item 12 of the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD). Item 12 requires franchisors to outline detailed information about franchise territories, such as their size, description, and the methodology used to define them.

This applies whether territories are predefined and sold as specific areas or left undefined for future approval. The bottom line: franchise territory allocation is essential for strategic growth and to minimize the risk of unhappy franchisees that pursue litigation.

What is Franchise Territory Optimization?

In simple terms, franchise territory optimization is defining the geographical areas where franchisees can operate their businesses, taking factors into consideration like population density, proximity to competitors, economic activity/economic shifts, consumer behavior, and logistical access.

As a franchisor, your goal is multi-faceted: you must strive to give franchisees enough space to grow while ensuring that their territories are strategically placed. Every franchise system is different, so territory optimization must consider the unique requirements of a business, whether it is a restaurant or a walk-in health clinic or a retail clothing store.

The Risks of Poor Franchise Territory Planning

Without a thoughtful approach to territory optimization, franchisors face several challenges that can undermine growth and profitability. These include:

1. Internal competition – Overlapping territories create sales cannibalization, leading to underperformance and franchisee dissatisfaction.
2. A bad reputation for your franchise – Frustrated franchisees will be vocal with their concerns, which can quickly hurt your reputation as both a franchisor and a business. Your customers will catch on to the differences between your franchise locations, and you could wind up spending much of your time assisting franchisees that are struggling (to the detriment of other franchisees).
3. Incorrect assessment of market potential – Without an accurate understanding of the potential of a market, you could end up creating and selling unbalanced franchise territories and leaving “white space” that is underserved. Again, this will result in underperformance and angry franchisees.
4. Competitor surprises – Failing to assess the competitive landscape can put your franchisees in a bad position. You also must continuously monitor franchise territories as market conditions and competitive impacts change.
5. Neglecting future expansion – Short-term growth might be top of your mind, but weak territory planning neglects your long-term goals as a franchisor.

Create Profitable and Fair Franchise Territories with SiteSeer

A strategic, data-driven approach to designing franchise territories is a must. Traditional mapping and redistricting software fall short when it comes to designing scalable and balanced franchise territories. Advanced territory optimization software is designed specifically to help franchisors create optimized, defensible territories that support franchise success.

Using machine learning and advanced algorithms, SiteSeer’s Territory Optimization helps franchise companies automate the design of balanced, fair franchise territories and plan for long-term growth and success.

SiteSeer is powerful site selection software used by retailers and other chain businesses (as well as commercial real estate brokers and shopping center developers leasing retail real estate). Franchisors also use SiteSeer to analyze markets and optimize franchise territories. With our Territory Optimization tool, you can:

• Build an expansion plan—from scratch for a new franchise, or start with your existing territories—to maximize growth and optimize overall franchise performance.
• Create impartial territories based on your franchise’s goals.
• Define your franchise site selection rules and simulate different scenarios using advanced algorithms for multi-objective optimization.
• Incorporate additional third-party datasets into the SiteSeer platform to strengthen your analysis.
• Manually edit franchise territories using SiteSeer’s redistricting tools.

Future-Proof Your Expansion Strategy

SiteSeer’s Territory Optimization tool will help you plan for future growth and define fair and defensible territories for future franchisees. SiteSeer’s franchise/sales territory optimization features are fast and easy to use, and will help you adapt to shifting market conditions with tools designed to grow alongside your franchise.

See how SiteSeer’s franchise territory optimization software can help your business thrive—schedule a demo today.