The 26th edition of the British Franchise Directory and Guide is published at a time when franchising is once again being tested in common with the nation's business. Again, I expect franchising to demonstrate that through boom and bust it remains the most reliable means of launching and keeping people in business on their own account.

Over the decades since franchising came to these shores, it has clocked up a truly remarkable record of sustaining franchise owners in profitable businesses no matter how difficult the economic conditions have become. There is no reason to suppose from the evidence available at the time of writing that things will be any different this time, even faced with the country’s biggest slump in 60 years.

If this proves to be the case, we can reasonably claim that franchising really is a sound way of doing business and that government in its widest sense should sit up and take notice.

Government should by now have exhibited greater interest in the franchising sector, given that its turnover is around one per cent of GDP, based essentially on the 350 or so franchise groups affiliated to the BFA with their 15,000 outlets. This is an organisation that has got a real handle on the problems of small businesses as well as its franchising specialism.

The recession also finds the BFA gearing up for the future. It is currently working out how over the next five years it is going to evolve its governance and funding so that all who earn their living in franchising can contribute to its operation and development. That means opening up its elected board to franchisees and affiliated support professions, such as lawyers, accountants and consultants.

The objectives of the exercise are to engage all the willing talent the BFA can muster from its ranks in its governance so that it is truly representative of the franchising family and to develop services for all its constituent members.

If this is not a sign of a mature organisation - the only representative body of British franchising - seeking to renew itself in a stronger, democratic form, I don't know what is. One thing is for sure: franchising is not using the recession to pause for breath, but to organise itself for a more robustly representative future.

Bernard Ingham
President, British Franchise Association

FOREWORD
By Sir Bernard Ingham
President, British Franchise Association