Looking at what’s changed in 2020 because of Covid – and what changes might be permanent – let’s start with the biggest driver of economic activity: consumers. A majority of the more than 2,000 people surveyed by Jones Lang LaSalle said they want to continue working away from the office at least two days a […]


Every crisis creates brand winners and losers. This one is no different. Eventual brand winners will be those that best understood the long-term implications during the crisis and reimagined their businesses from the ground up. I’m not yet prepared to forecast the winners, but I can raise some questions that might help multi-unit operators consider […]

We thought we knew how the end of this first generation of substantial multi-unit expansion was moving into the next generational phase, i.e., a combination of family/investor ownership buyouts, M&A consolidation, and continued expansion within and across brands. But the Covid-19 crisis is showing some initial signs of changing how this next generation of multi-unit […]

FRANdata has continued to test and review the FUND Model to ensure it provides the best possible measure of franchisor risk available to lending institutions. Applying this model to more than 500 brands, the predictable pattern between loan performance and FUND credit scores continues, while being fine-tuned for 2020. FRANdata has continued to back-test the […]

As leaders, our key challenge is to make decisions, first strategically, and then operationally. For the past few months, we have been making operational decisions as a reaction to the crisis we all are forced to confront. With most of those decisions made, we now turn to our primary job of guiding organizations into the […]