CEO Update: 26th March 2020

In more than 20 years at the bfa I have seen us weather a few storms, from global economic recessions to Brexit. Throughout each crisis or hurdle we face as a sector, there is always one prevailing thing that stands out… The way franchising comes together as a community. This is no different. As we address this pandemic, that will no doubt become a chapter in our history, we as an industry will pull together again.

Here at the bfa, our mission and commitment to you as Members remains the same. To protect franchising and deliver value to you through the services we offer, innovation and overall promotion of franchising to a wider audience. And we continue to do that together. My thanks to the amazing speakers that have stepped up and continue to step up every day and deliver, with us, ‘bfa Franchise Surgeries’. These are to help you navigate the unique and evolving challenges we are all facing because no one business has all the answers and no one can do it alone.

There are a few things I’d like to update you on:

• The Leading Educator – As the leading educator in franchising we are ensuring we can be the one stop shop for everything you need at the moment. As you will be aware we have been running a series of ‘bfa Franchise Surgeries’. These will continue to run every week day at 11am and I am pleased to confirm the schedule for next week is as follows:

• bfa Franchise Support Forum – To avoid sending you daily emails we are now moving to using the new LinkedIn group – ‘bfa Franchise Support Forum’ – as a channel to communicate with you so you can access this information at a time to suit you. The daily ‘bfa Franchise Surgery’ links are posted within the group and yesterday we also added our first Support Guide. This is the first of many guides that we will be producing to bring useful information and guidance together in one place. The link to join the group, if you haven’t already, is: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8917072/

• Influence – We have had a number of questions about support for self-employed individuals. As an association we have been working closely with the CBI and other trade associations to lobby government on this point. There is a Bill currently under review and there will be an announcement of an income contribution to support individual franchisees. As soon as the announcement is made, we will share this information with you.

• Promotion – Sharing success stories about the great things franchising does continues to be a priority of ours, so please keep your news stories and case studies coming into us at press@thebfa.org and keep an eye out for new campaigns. Additionally, following the launch of the new bfa website in January we continue to develop this platform ensuring it is the ‘Go To Hub’ for franchising. If you can afford some time, we would encourage you to review and send us any additional content to maximise your web listings.

• Future Events – We had already taken the decision to postpone our Superbrand event to May 2021 and will share the new date with you as soon as this is confirmed. We have this week taken the decision to move the bfa Annual Conference & Awards from the end of June to later in the year. The new dates for your diary are Monday, 30^th November and Tuesday, 1^st December. If you have already booked to attend, we will transfer your bookings over to the new dates. Also, given that this would be so close to our Annual General Meeting (AGM), I can confirm we will be running the AGM within the body of the Annual Conference this year.

We know that these are unprecedented times so if there is anything we can do to support you as a business please do let me or a member of the team know on 01235 820470  or via mailroom@thebfa.org