Sign franchise on the anvil
In India, signage industry is basically governed
by a host of individual players, with only a few
ones having offices in different parts of the
country. The concept of franchise for sign shops
is unheard here, but not anymore. US-based
SIGN-A-RAMA, with franchises in over 50
countries with 900 outlets, is now eyeing Indian
market for similar franchise arrangements.
What is a franchise? It is
a legal and commercial
relationship between
the owner of a trademark, service
mark, trade name, or advertising
symbol and an individual or group
wishing to use that identification
in a business. Each franchise
business has been authorized by
a parent company, or franchisor,
to sell their goods and/or services
either in a retail space or a
designated geographical area.
Today, franchising has evolved to
be the largest and most popular
business model in the world to
build, introduce and export
businesses of all kinds. Perhaps the
very first franchises in the world
came from the United States and
they were mostly food-based
concepts such as McDonalds and
Kentucky Fried Chicken. Today,
there are over 5,000 business
concepts and the fastest growing
concepts in the world are
“business to business” concepts
such as SIGN-A-RAMA franchise
system for sign businesses.
Franchises are designed in such a
way that they can be managed by
anyone who wish to own and
manage their own business but
want the security and stability of
being with a well-known and
respected organisation that
provides excellent support and
ongoing training so they can grow
their business on regular basis.
This is precisely what SIGN-ARAMA
provides to its franchisees.
Today, their franchise brand has
grown into almost 50 different
countries worldwide.
SIGN-A-RAMA has now focused
its attention on the Indian market
and will be introducing the
franchise for the very first time at
the New Delhi franchise show to
be held in March, 2007. Tony
Foley, international director,
SIGN-A-RAMA will be a guest
speaker at this event. He will also
address the individuals who are
interested in learning more about
a master license opportunity.
Initially, the company plans to
offer three separate “regional”
master licenses, for the north, the
central and the south.
Tracing the history of SIGN-ARAMA,
S&G found that
established in 1985, it is a dream
project of Raymond Titus who is
the president and founder of the
company. Ray’s father Roy Titus
was instrumental in building wellknown
quick printing franchise,
MINUTEMAN PRESS in 1975,
which today has about 1,000
franchise locations in six
countries. The father and son duo
were looking to start up another
successful franchise concept,
which led them to research the
sign industry in the United States
in 1984. What they found was that
the industry was made of
craftspeople and small sign
businesses, which were operating
from their homes or garages, or
in some cases, from small facilities
in industrial parks. On the other
end of the sign industry were the
large commercial companies that
focused on the larger national
companies, catering mostly to
electrical signage such as large
channel letters, box signs and
metal letters of all types and the
installation on buildings. What Ray
and Roy noticed was that these
sign companies were ignoring the
small to medium size businesses
and hence they assigned their
signage jobs to local craftsman,
with no standardisation in quality
and pricing. They also noticed that
need for signage is not seasonal
but year round. After conducting
careful research into the US
sign industry, they felt that
there certainly was much room
for improvement in how signs
are being produced and the
service offered in terms of timely
delivery, etc.
Since there was no other
franchise in the sign industry, Ray
and Roy opened the first SIGNA-
RAMA flagship store in Long
Island, New York and tested the
concept for over one year to
ensure its success. Ray ran this
first store himself to gain hands on
experience so that he could pass
this knowledge along to others.
This first flagship location proved
to be highly successful and so the
company began to offer franchises
to the public in November 1987.
At that time, the goal of the
company was to just offer
franchises in the North American
market place. However, with the
introduction of the new and
exciting franchise concept on the
Internet in 1990s, the company
began to receive franchising
requests from all over the world
and SIGN-A-RAMA became a
global brand.
Tony Foley joined SIGN-A-RAMA
as the company’s international
director to lead the system
forward in specific global markets.
He was instrumental in offering
“master development licenses” to
qualified individuals for targeted
markets. In the last ten years,
SIGN-A-RAMA has awarded
master licenses to countries such
as Australia, South Africa, China,
France, Germany, Spain, Mexico,
Albania, Romania, Ireland,
Nigeria, Tanzania, Guatemala,
Thailand and Korea to name just
a few and they are now in
close to 50 countries making
SIGN-A-RAMA the world’s
largest sign franchise system with
almost 900 store locations.
The need for good service and
quality in the sign industry is
universal and India is no exception.
So, here comes SIGN-A-RAMA,
which has been built on the
foundation of providing
extraordinary service, superior
quality, at affordable prices.
To learn more about the exclusive
master licenses, contact : Tony Foley,
United Franchise Group, World
Headquarters, West Palm Beach,
Florida USA, Tel: 561-868-1358,
mobile: 561-262-0591, email:
tfoley@worldfranchisors.com or visit
www.unitedfranchisegroup.com
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