Taft attorneys have extensive experience franchising businesses in a wide range of industries. We work with clients to take businesses through the steps to set up proper franchises, providing the best opportunity for success.

The Challenge

There are several necessary steps a business should take when considering franchising. The business first needs to be evaluated to ensure everything is structured correctly for the franchising process. A company must then prepare a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), an extensive and complicated legal document required for the franchise operation.

A key component of the FDD is the operations manual, the foundation of a franchise. The operations manual contains the specifications, standards, and procedures for the franchise to operate. It is important to have one that is well-written with clearly defined standards and policies. Due to its’ extensive preparation time and significant importance, an operations manual can be expensive to prepare.

Taft in Action

In collaboration with Taft’s Franchise attorneys, the firm’s Information Technology and Innovation teams created a software solution to collect the information needed to draft an operations manual.

This platform allows the client to enter data and documents into a secure database. Then, the proprietary software inputs the information and assists in creating a customized operations manual that is unique to the client’s business, proprietary and legally protected. It is also able to be further customized and tweaked to account for the evolving needs of the client and business. Ultimately, it is software that aids the attorneys in creating a robust and legally protected document that is also flexible enough to account for future growth as the business matures.

Results and Impact

Through collaboration and an innovative solution, Taft was able to streamline and automate a client service offering that has resulted in significant cost and time savings.

Learn more about Taft’s Franchise Advance Program here.