Bringing New Brands to Mena
New Food Brands for MENA
An established family expands into a new market
- Duration: 2014
- Goal: identify one or more high growth new concept fast food brands to bring to MENA
- Partners: Grahampton & Company
- Deliverables: Partner search (both long and short-listing with negotiation facilitation for the top candidates), initial financial projections, preliminary site selection
- Interesting issues addressed: Business concept development, family business dynamics, new market entry, food franchising, MENA consumer markets
Situation
Our client is an established family with operations in a number of business verticals, primarily in heavy industry. They have good relationships with the government and business families in the region. Seeing the consumer changes taking place in the market, the family wanted to bring one or more new brands with a focus on modern tastes to a number of fast-growing markets in MENA.
Complication
The challenge was that the sponsors had distinct preferences, but needed a better understanding of the companies who best fit their vision and who wanted to have a presence in MENA.
Key question and answer
The key question for the engagement was then how to source, identify and negotiate with the right brands to ensure that alignment with the sponsors was reached? Our answer was to create a long list, then a short list of potential partners, manage the negotiations and prepare a package that included a go-to-market plan with initial site rankings across the country.
Solution
The proposed solution efficiently identified the sponsor’s preferences, matched them to the family business structure, then screened potential brands for fit. In addition, we began the process of site selection and prioritization as well as putting together the short form pitch book to use in discussions with bankers. Our efforts were timely and cost effective for the scale of the envisioned investment, allowing us to get from a literal idea from the sponsor to serious face to face meetings with two potential franchise partners within 6 six weeks. Also, since we were interviewing and cataloging so many franchisors, we were able to uncover a number of insights about franchisor preferences, particularly for Master Franchisees in emerging markets and the emerging food and beverage trends that are attracting retail franchisee attention.