The Hindu Business Line : ‘Franchising, a good career opportunity’

Chennai, Oct. 11 Franchising is an option youth can explore for career opportunities. It offers franchisees the advantage of starting up a new business quickly, based on a proven trademark and formula of doing business, as opposed to having to build a new business and brand from scratch. Even fresh graduates can excel at it. Rather than the degree you acquire in college, people usually recruit students who have imbibed the right qualities and are hard-working and systematic in their work,” said Mr S.B.P. Pattabhi Rama Rao, President, Cookie Man, addressing the MBA students of the Meenakshi Sundararajan School of Management, Chennai, at a Business Line club lecture.

Mr Rao said the retail development boom in the country is “absolutely scary”. There is no guarantee whatsoever that a shop will do well, even if it caters to the consumers’ every need. “In every business, establishing a consumer-relationship is very vital, and in fact, more important than advertising. Even if your product is fabulous and satisfies your consumer’s every need, if you fail to hand over the product with a courteous smile, then the degree of satisfaction recedes,” he pointed out.

On his company, he went on to say that Cookie Man satisfied the desire for good, freshly-baked cookies, and was helped along by the shift in preference to such products rather than branded cookies. “Every business starts small. We also started small. When Cookie Man’s first outlet opened in Melbourne, it did very well. In the early 1960s, the main emphasis was not on the brand.”

While coffee pubs, which are niche hang-out spots for the youth, target a particular age group, Cookie Man has no such target age group. Cookies can be eaten by anyone, which is why there is a lot of scope for this business, he said.

Mr. V. S. Vikram, Director of the institution, cited the example of the Mrs Fields brand of cookies. “What started off as a small shop soon expanded into 390 units in the US and around 80 internationally. That is the magnitude of the scope in business,” he said.

Mr Saiju M. John, Professor of Meenakshi Sundararajan School of Management, delivered a vote of thanks.

More Stories on : Channels and Franchises | Entrepreneurship | Tamil Nadu

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