By IANS,
New Delhi : While most sectors face a slump in demand owing to the global slowdown, the franchising industry is scaling up operations and recruiting professionals, an industry lobby survey has said.
“While other industries are constrained to lay off people, franchisors are having a busy time as they are recruiting new franchisees,” according to the survey by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
“They also need more professionals in their organisations, now more than ever before for planning and managing their network growth strategy,” it added.
The total number of people employed in the franchise sector is estimated at 950,000. Of these, about 750,000 are permanent full-time employees, 80,000 are permanent part-time, while 120,000 lakh are casual labourers.
Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) boasts of having 70 percent brands of 408 brand franchisors.
Western India with 386 brands, bulk of them from Mumbai and Gujarat, occupies the second spot, followed by southern India with 250 brands (mostly in Bangalore and Chennai) and the eastern region with 58 brands (majority in Kolkata).
There are about 1,200 franchisors at present in the country, out of which 75 percent are of Indian origin and rest are international.
The report also stated that the Indian franchising sector is growing at the rate of 38 percent per annum with a market size of $7.2 billion and is expected to reach $20 billion by 2013.
There are 200 food and beverage franchises concepts across the country, forming 17 percent of the total pie.
The survey predicted that the Indian food service entrepreneurs will go on an expansion spree, providing a thrust to the sector making it grow at 48 percent in the next two years.