Franchwise: More and more Romanians want to become entrepreneurs

Romanians are increasingly attracted to the idea of ​​opening their own business, especially in the franchise system, to have financial security. Thus, interest in franchising courses, which would prepare them to open a business in this system, increased by 50% in 2023 compared to last year, with men being the most eager to learn how to open their own business, according to the data Franchwise, the largest franchise consulting firm.

Thus, over 80% of the participants in franchising courses are men, between 35 and 45 years old, graduates of higher education, in the fields of FMCG, retail or services, who want to give up their professional career to develop a business. Although it represents a smaller percentage, the number of women participating in franchising courses is increasing, from year to year, by an average of 15%-20%.

Romanians who participate in franchising courses are generally interested in investing in service franchises (consulting, business mentoring, children’s education), HoReCa (niche cafes, ice cream parlors, pizzerias) or retail (proximity concept stores, florists, fashion, and accessories).

“The pandemic has radically changed the mentality of Romanians – more and more people want to have their own business, to have that something on their own account, in order to achieve long-term financial stability. And the easiest and safest way to develop a business is to start with a franchise, which comes with a standard for replicating the activity and a recipe for achieving results. We see from month to month how the interest in having your own business is getting stronger in Romania, especially since we have more requests for participation in franchising courses than the possibility to organize these courses, mainly outside Bucharest, in the big cities of of the country: Cluj, Constanța, Brașov, Sibiu, Iași, Timișoara, Bacău and the list can go on”, says Raluca Voicu, co-founder of Franchwise.

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 In this context, of the increased interest in franchising courses, Franchwise concluded a partnership with the business coach Lorand Soares Szasz, the founder of Upriserz.ro, to launch the first courses dedicated to franchising entrepreneurship on this platform.

The two courses, “The step-by-step guide to your own franchise business” and “Franchise your business for healthy growth”, available exclusively on the Upriserz.ro platform, are dedicated to both future entrepreneurs, who learn how to choose the right franchise for them and how to manage a franchise business, as well as to entrepreneurs with mature businesses who want to grow their businesses by selling franchises.

Franchwise is the first provider of franchising courses in Romania, organizing over 10 specialized courses annually, attended by an average of 100 to 200 Romanians willing to invest in franchises and 40 to 80 entrepreneurs who want to grow the business by selling franchises.

Moreover, Romanians’ appetite for investments in franchises is continuously increasing, with an increase of approximately 30% in the number of franchises opened in the first trimester of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

Between January and March 2023, most franchises were opened in Bucharest, Brașov, Craiova, Iași, Bacău, Constanța, and Timișoara, with average investments between 80,000 euros and 100,000 euros, Franchwise reaching a total number of 300 openings of intermediated franchises, which represent total investments of over 22 million euros. The most attractive areas for a franchise business are ice cream parlors, cafes, convenience stores, convenience stores, business consulting and mentoring services or franchises in the field of photovoltaic panels.

“Also, the number of Romanian companies (franchisors) that chose to develop through the franchise system registered a significant increase of 30% in the period 2020-2022, compared to 2019. This increase was accentuated after the pandemic when it became much more difficult to scale regional businesses and multiply management teams for remote business control. The choice of franchising has become increasingly popular among entrepreneurs in Romania, being considered one of the preferred methods to scale the business, with the possibility of registering up to 10 times higher growth in a much shorter time frame compared to other expansion strategies. This significant increase in the number of franchisors in Romania indicates the increasing tendency of entrepreneurs to adopt this business model to expand their market presence and benefit from the success of other already established brands”, says Paul Voicu, co-founder of Franchwise.