What will the July Franchising Confidence Index find?

Starting next Monday Franchize Consultants will begin surveying New Zealand franchisors and services providers for their 12-month outlook on key confidence measures. In the spotlight will be franchisor growth prospects and, key contributors to franchising network growth and health, including general business conditions, access to financing, suitable franchisees and locations, franchisee sales, operating costs and profitability.

As demonstrated by the following, the economic backdrop is currently mixed to fair:

• The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey  shows New Zealand employers are at their most optimistic levels in two years (Source: NZ Herald, June 8)
• Key banks (e.g., ASB, ANZ, National Bank, BNZ, Westpac and Kiwibank) have all instituted selected post OCR rate hikes
• BNZ Confidence Index slips from a net positive 34% in May, to 26% in June (Source: BNZ)
• The May ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey demonstrates three successive lifts in consumer confidence (Source: ANZ)
• The Westpac-McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence Index moved up 4.6 points to 119.3 in June 2010 and up by 13.3 points compared with this time last year (Source: McDermott Miller)
• In mid-May, the quarterly ASB Investor Confidence index revealed a dip in investor confidence. A net 23 percent of investors expected a better rate of return over the forthcoming year compared with a fall of 7 points since the December 2009 quarter (Source: ASB Bank)

We look forward to results from the July Franchising Confidence Index survey. Franchisors and service providers will be surveyed between Monday 28 June and Friday 2 July (5 days). Results can be expected by Wednesday 7 July.