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My partners and I want to bring a Smoothies & Sandwiches franchise to Kuwait, but not sure on location. A mall brings in traffic, but rent is expensive and competition is intense. What if we follow the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ and open it away from competition to gain competitive advantage? What are your thoughts on that?

Competition wouldn’t be in this or that mall, if they were not profitable, right? Not always. Some businesses stay where they are because they don’t know where to go, they don’t have a strategy or they’re just waiting to sell their location for BIG key money. Blue Ocean Strategy doesn’t only mean staying away from where the competition is but going after the same target audience. It also means having a new business model that targets a different type of customers altogether. Besides, being in a mall doesn’t guarantee you success either. As more malls becoming hangout places, people are spending more time, but not more money.

Let’s say you decided to focus on employees in a central location among office towers or in a campus to serve university students. You need to find out if the demand in that area is enough to sustain and grow the business; and if the franchiser’s operational setup is scalable to fit such locations. A British entrepreneur started his own lunch sandwiches delivery near the City Hall area to busy employees who can’t leave their offices to grab a bite. He started with a small preparation space in one of the office buildings’ basement. In no time his monthly revenue reached £8,000. But he had only two part-time staff and no franchise fees or royalties to pay and he closed his business after lunch. Wherever you decide to go, have a business model, research the area, get your numbers straight, and follow your main customers, but the hype…and that’s just my two cents.

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