Our Asia-Pacific Centre for Franchising Excellence received a visit from the senior staff of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) this week.

It wasn’t related to anti-competitive behaviour or breaches of legislation –it was highly positive – they came on-campus to learn more about the Centre and meet Centre members.

We had the opportunity to hear first hand from three of the ACCC’s most senior people responsible for franchising — Deputy Chairperson Dr Michael Schaper, Compliance Strategies Branch General Manager Nigel Ridgway and Industry Codes Director Konrad Chmielewski.

It was such a coup to have them travel from Canberra to meet with us and to receive a direct insight.

Although overall they feel the Australian market is fairly well informed and well educated, they are always striving to do better.

Australia is one of the few countries with national franchise-specific legislation, which is regulated and enforced by the ACCC.

One of their biggest challenges is reaching out to a constantly-changing business community — there are 330 000 new businesses which are created each year and another 280 000 businesses which cease trading each year.

In fact, it’s been estimated 70 per cent of businesses that will be trading 10 years from now haven’t yet been created, which is potentially problematic from an education perspective.

The ACCC is working with franchisor and franchisee groups (and met with the Queensland Franchisee Association after our meeting), educators and small business advisors across this and the whole body of challenges experienced by the sector.

The Asia-Pacific Centre for Franchising Excellence already enjoys a good working relationship with the ACCC, but hopefully this will strengthen in coming years as we both work towards meeting the needs of the sector.

As the franchise sector regulator the ACCC acknowledges the need for a body of research to inform what they do, which is one area we are already working together.

As you may have heard me mention before, the ACCC is a funding partner for an Australian Research Council linkage project with the Centre. This project seeks to develop a model that can identify early warning signs of conflict in franchise relationships so they can be addressed before escalating into disputes.

They also commented during their visit how it’s unusual there’s only one centre in the country looking into franchise matters and how great it was to see so many researchers involved with the Centre.

It’s a great coup for the Centre to attract such positive attention from an organisation like the ACCC and to be able to hear first hand the issues which are important to them, while sharing the Centre’s research, education, goals and capabilities.

We’d love to hear the issues which are important to you too. Please share your comments below.

Caption: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Industry Codes Director Konrad Chmielewski, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) Professor Ned Pankhurst, ACCC Compliance Strategies Branch General Manager Nigel Ridgway, ACCC Deputy Chair Michael Schaper and Asia-Pacific Centre for Franchising Excellence Director and Griffith Business School Dean (Learning & Teaching) Professor Lorelle Frazer.