Different strokes for different enterprises. You can be McDonald's and grow to your heart's content, provided you do not take an individual franchise and plant it next-door to another McDonald's or other competitor.
Then there is AT&T. They used to be Bell Telephone and it was a monopoly until they busted up the conglomerate and actually caused Bell to break up into mini-Bell Telephones and use different names under the same umbrella.
Now, Bell Telephone is a stab from the far flung past.
Some McDonald's restaurants are company-owned but mostly individuals own them. Now some franchisees own quite a few. The couple for whom I worked owned 7 at the time I retired. Corporate sends folks out to monitor restaurants and if you don't follow the strict guidelines that all restaurants must follow you will lose your franchise and the ownership reverts back to corporate. I don't know if there are any rules about how many franchisees a company can have. They keep the guidelines strict because they want customers to be able to count on the food no matter where they are. The menus change somewhat according to the location. The restaurants in foreign lands have items on the menu that are suited for the taste of that culture. Thank you for your reply Sharon and Happy Thursday! :)
Not to mention the corporation tries to squeeze every penny possible out of the franchise, without regard to the franchise owner being able to make a profit.
I worked at a RadioShack Franchise. The corporate representative was constantly trying to get us to order stock beyond the minimum required by the contract. But if the owners had, they would have never been able to turn a profit. Instead, they ordered a lot of the "parts" stock from other vendors - sold it at the same price as the RadioShack equivalent - and made a reasonable profit.
There is a chart showing that the vast majority of food products are owned by only 10 companies. Forget those thousands of brand labels - there are only 10 companies.
But let's be honest. The government creates artificial monopolies. EG: garbage disposal or cable contracts, at the local level. (You have to use CompanyX. No choice.)
It's hard to look at that chart for very long Walt. Where is Johnson & Johnson? What the chart shows appears to be mostly foods/beverages. What about everything else? Thank you for your reply and the link. I guess if loopholes exist companies will find them and exploit them. I wonder if there is an HONESTLY-run company anywhere of any size? SIGH. Happy Thursday! :)
WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH 