According to Eric Shlosser, Unifromity is the way a franchise attempts to maintain the same service as well as the same product in all of its various locations.(pg5)  Uniformity is of the utmost importance comments, Ray kroc.”We have found out … that we cannot trust some people who are nonconformists, and “We will make conformists out of them in hurry… The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization(pg5). The rationale for this is provide to the patrons a sense of reassurance and regularity ; a “brand essence”. Since more than 70 percent of restaurant trips are impulsive, the customers should feel like they can expect the same service and product that they had in New York  City to be comparable with the one they have in Dallas. Uniformity is also useful in the kitchen area. As the workers obey specific standards to complete one task the food looks and tastes the same.

Blog #1

In fast food nation, Eric Schlosser defines encroachment as a situation where a member of the same fast food chain is put closer to one another. This act causes many franchises a loss of business, but does not affect franchisors because the bulk of their profit comes from royalty sales. A group of McDonald’s franchises, displeased  with the chain’s encroachment,  formed  an organization called Consortium Members, Inc. The fast food chains are periodically sued by franchisees for mishandled decisions like: unfair terminations  of contracts,  inflated prices charged by suppliers, and encroachment. During, the 1990‘s the most accused of these abuses was the subway franchise. Dean Sager, a former staff economist for the U.S. House of Representatives called Subway the worst franchise in America. “ Subway is the biggest problem in franchising,” Sager told Fortune magazine in 1998, “ and emerges as one of the key examples of every [franchise] abuse you can think of.