Can The Evolution of Blockchain Technology Transform The Franchise Industry

You have probably heard of franchising before. While the word might sound somewhat vague if you are not too connected with the business world, you should that franchising is basically selling a franchise license to a third party. Just like Subway does, for instance. It is not the same company that manages all the stores across the world, so it franchises it.

With this out of the way, we can refer to a recent article published by Forbes. The writer, Ed Teixeira, is the Chief Operating Officer of Franchise Grade and the president of FranchjiseKnowHow, a franchise consulting firm, so you can bet he understands what he’s talking about.

Basically, Teixeira comments about the recent International Bar Association, Franchise Law Committee meeting, which happened in Rome. Some highly important execs like Craig Tractenberg, a Partner at Fox Rothchild, were present and they discussed how the blockchain technology can affect franchising.

Some people which were already familiar with the technology knew that you could use it for much more than crypto transactions and they were interested in its potential for record keeping. As the blockchain can be used as a database, it has been highly used for shipping logs and logistic processes, for instance.

At the meeting, Tractenberg used his own examples: Foodcoin cuts the intermediaries off the agriculture business, Fantom Foundation using the app for food reservations and Carry Protocol letting merchants talk to each other. The reality is that the blockchain technology has almost endless use cases, you just have to be smart, creative and have some hardcore developers to create a good system.

For instance, you could use, as it was mentioned during the interview, cryptocurrencies to create loyalty programs that could be used all over a franchise in spite of it not having the exact same managers and not being completely connected.

How To Use The Blockchain With Franchises?

So, can they be used? Yes. The truth is that, as you will easily have seen if you followed the ICO craze of 2017, cryptos can be used for everything. Sure, there were exaggerations and scams, but a lot of the projects really aimed to create useful things and businesses using the distributed ledger technology.

This way, the blockchain technology could change the way that franchise entities transact business, for instance, or how they manage their franchises. The applications, when you consider management and logistics, are endless.

While Forbe’s original article does not dig deep in the matter, crypto enthusiasts could easily see how the technology could be used in these situations for its resilience and the decentralized way that it works. Decentralization simply combines very well with the decentralized nature of franchises and their many businesses, so it looks like they might be a great match.