As we state in other governance-focused best practices, franchising by its very nature demands strong governance. All franchisor businesses require good governance, and more focused governance is typically needed to cope with the increasingly changing and complex environment their businesses face.
Within governance, meeting regularity speaks to a level of focus and resource on franchise system governance. A franchisor needs to ensure enough and relevant (which may mean frequent) time is dedicated to this task.
Recent research we conducted, indicated mature franchisors ranging from two meetings per year to ten regular meetings a year. Furthermore, some companies supplemented regular governance meetings with yet other meetings, including strategy development and other situation specific meetings, committee meetings and conference attendance.
We suggest a franchise system governance meeting minimum regularity of once per quarter but note this depends upon the situation. Complicated circumstances require considerably more governance resource – encompassing factors such as number of directors / advisors, typical meeting duration and, meeting focus including a [Governance Focus on the Future] – along with meeting regularity.
An individual company’s circumstance, goals and environment, and existing director experience, should be important contributing factors when deciding upon both governance regularity and other governance-related structural decisions.
About the Franchising Best Practice 500 Series
This is part of a series of franchising best practices. Franchize Consultants is sharing and publishing these best practices weekly for the betterment of franchising. We know that better knowledge and execution of franchising best practices leads to bigger and more valuable franchisor and franchisee businesses.
We have assembled the first 40 best practices into The Best Practice Handbook, which is available for purchase.
