Strategic Challenges

A franchise model has two customers

The consumer proposition must remain attractive while the economics and operating model also work for the franchisee.

2026 1 min read Author: WalsonParker

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Focus

Corporate positioning becomes strategic when it is designed around stakeholders whose choices materially affect the company's ability to execute.

Early R&D should create knowledge that changes future choices, not simply advance projects because resources have already been committed.

Strategic challenges

The same person can make very different choices depending on need, context, urgency, channel and willingness to pay.

The harder problem is concentrating enough talent and capital behind a limited number of opportunities to generate meaningful evidence.

POV

Building what customers ask for can improve a product while gradually destroying the differentiation that gave them a reason to choose it.

A company can gain share and still lose economically when rivalry forces pricing, investment or service levels beyond sustainable returns.

Strategic impact

Shared customers, capabilities or infrastructure create value only when their benefits outweigh coordination, compromise and managerial overhead.

Direct, wholesale, retail and digital routes create stronger systems when their roles are explicit rather than competing for the same demand.

What we observe

We frequently see detailed personas that create little guidance about which customers, occasions or economics should actually be prioritised.

We frequently see R&D continue through organisational momentum even after the assumptions that originally justified it have weakened.