18 Franchise Management

To scale up business operations and market presence, particularly in new markets, retailers may choose to utilize business partners to manage branded or co-branded stores while retaining the retailer's business processes and value proposition. Businesses who partner with a retailer to expand the retailer's presence are known as franchisees. Retailers using the Franchise Management component in Merchandising can choose to manage inventory for some, all, or none of the franchise locations in the solution.

The batch processes that are used for Franchise Management in Merchandising fall primarily into the following areas:

• Managing customer groups and customers

• Managing franchise costing

• Managing franchise orders and returns