Introduction

This paper aims to understand the reason and theoretical and practical approach of
The Bardon group by which this said company became one of the most successful
franchisees of UK and have namely 4 franchisees under them which are namely
computerxplorers, kall kwik, recognition express and techclean. To understand how
them became successful three franchise theories have been used namely the
agency theory, signalling theory and resource scarcity theory. These theories have
been researched and used in accordance to The Bardon groups application in real
life
Franchising can be termed as a system of distribution in which the franchisor issue
all the rights to use its product, trademarks, to the franchisee the franchisor provides
the franchisee with all the necessary information about how to run the franchise
information about the trademarks all the legal and economic advice and a constant
support both initially and until the agreement is over and in return the franchisee
provides the franchisor with fee and profit share for using there services of
trademarks and support (Stanworth & Purdy, 2000, p. 199)

The Bardon group is one of the top franchise brands around the world. Bardon
group was started 30 years ago under the name of recognition group and has grown
rapidly through the years and currently own 4 franchises namely computerxplorers,
kall kwik, recognition express and techclean.
Starting from computerxplorers it works in partnership with many educational
institutes and organisations and provides a mix of technology based activities,
courses for everyone, next is kall kwik it is design and printing based business which
has a network of over 50 centres and the team of designers has designed things
ranging from training material , business stationary and marketing collaterals as
well. Recognition expert was established in 1979 and is in business of supplying
promotional products, promotional name badges and also supplies clothes to
various organisations and educational institutes and businesses as well . recognition
express has also won the BFA franchisor of the year. Techclean was started in 1983
are specialist in cleaning solution for systems like pc, photocopiers, scanners and
ATM’S and techclean offers its services to variety of organisations from top business
companies to governments and various other organisations (The Bardon Group,
2020)

The theory which can be aligned with the high success rate and legacy of the
Bardon group is the agency theory of franchising the most widely accepted
argument of agency theory is from rubin which was rolled out in 1978 according to it
the managerial staff of company owned units don’t get the benefits of their work and
nor they take up the cost because there is not a good link between their salary and
the performance of their outlet this may result in less responsibility of the job, the
agency theory perceives that franchising is a very appropriate tool for problems of
productivity and motivation for work in employee and dodging the cost of
supervising and observation of the employee , it has been stated that the easiest
way to motivate a franchise is to offer a profit share to the franchisee (rubin,1978)
due to this the franchisee will work harder. But agency theory has some
disadvantages as well that due to number of dispersed franchisees it doesn’t show
any use for this theory (Kaufmann and Dant, 1996) but this problem has been solved
with the advancement in telecommunication and information sharing developments
now the geographic distance doesn’t matter. (Lafontaine, 1992)

In accordance to the Bardon group all the four franchises have their respective
heads and are responsible for their performance and have a common director Mr.
Nigel topolis and each franchise has its own directors and head of business which
makes them very efficient, Bardon group always provides superior level of support to
their franchisees which helps in the growth of not only the franchise but also of the
Bardon group , the Bardon group also communicates and advices the franchisees
how to run the business and also communicates with them on timely basis and also
organizes conferences for franchisee owners so that they can learn and reflect on
their early performances and Bardon group is one of the few companies which
provide there franchisees with one to one business advice and that is not confined to
only 1 franchise but to all the franchise of the Bardon group and the way Bardon
group communicates with its franchise owner helps them to build a stronger
business (The Bardon Group, 2020)

The next theory which aligns with success of Bardon group is the signalling theory
Signalling theory refers to how franchisors with high quality of products and services
attract their prospective franchisee, there are a lot of advantages of signalling theory
the companies which want to increase their profits and attract the appropriate
partners in franchise. The signalling firms value to franchisee and helps the
franchisee to make the right decision and choose the appropriate franchise
decision, franchisors use signalling methods like disclosing contractual agreements
and other services to franchisees to attract them. After number of research it has
been found that when the franchisor shares there strategy and chain management
this contributes towards the relationship of franchisor and franchise (Roh and Yoon,
2009; Grace and Weaven 2011; Altinay and Brookes, 2012) initial support and
assistance is to current franchise is very important for current franchise and is the
best way to develop the chain and to bring in new franchise it is done because
mostly the new franchisee don’t have a lot of experience in that particular field of
business or are inexperienced so that’s why the franchisor has to support them and
help them in induction and motivate the new franchise to do better, ongoing
business assistance is also very important for new franchisee pre-opening support
and training for managerial staff is also very important and sometimes franchises
also help in lease allotment, although these pre-opening training are very important
very few organizations which are financially strong are able to do it because of high
costs of training. (Lucia-Palacios et al., 2014)

Bardon group has always helped its prospective franchise to be successful initial
training are provided from the franchise one to one support is provided as well and
even month long induction training is also organized by the Bardon group, the
website of the group is very informative and very user friendly where all the
information regarding franchise is provided and even articles like which franchise
will be best suited for you is provided as well which is a very good example of
signaling and bringing in prospective franchise through distribution of data. The
Bardon Group, 2020)

The next theory which perfectly aligns with Bardon groups success is the resource
scarcity theory this theory implies that due to rapid growth helps a new firm to build
a brand name as it creates economics of scale in purchasing and marketing
(Oxenfeldt & Kelly, 1969) there area number of prediction for this theory such as
during scarcity of resources many firms turn towards franchisee for their managerial
expertise and local knowledge and supply of the product sand service it simply
means that franchise is the way to overcome problems in internal growth such as
time to train managers. Franchisor which don’t have access to financial resources
go ahead with franchising because if these said franchisors had access to financial
aids and resources they wouldn’t turn to franchising and rather grow with their
company owned outlets and centers Lafontaine and Kaufmann (1994) have
implied that franchising is a better way to get money than selling company shares as
after selling of shares the control of company gets divided while in franchising the
control of the company is not compromised which is good for strategic control of the
company according to Oxenfeld and Kelly (1969) that once the franchisor has all the
resources for expansion the franchisor will stop franchising and will re buy all the
franchised outlets from its franchisees this is also known as ownership redirection
but many studies have suggested that even after franchisor has all the access to the
resources they don’t follow ownership redirection and remain the way they were.
The Bardon group according to its website has provisions for resale of the
franchisee from current franchisee owners they can either sell their franchisee to the
Bardon group and they can either hold that franchise with themselves or can re sale
the franchisee to someone new this helps them to get the capital and when needed
take control of the franchisee. (Diaz-Bernardo, 2012)
Conclusion

It has been observed that Bardon group has used the franchising theory in their
business expansion and the support the organization offers is of the highest
standards and after sale support for these new and existing franchisees help them
and the company to group. It is very evident that Bardon group also goes out of its
way to help and support their franchisees this has also been the driving force of their
success story
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