The new Flexible Franchise offers a significantly lower entry level investment to the Jani-King system, giving motivated entrepreneurs a foothold on the ladder to building a £1 million plus turnover business.

Jani-King Chairman Ian Thomas says: 'The reduction in available finance from the banking community which has driven down bank lending ratios for new businesses, coupled with the downwards pressure on house prices which is reducing available equity on which to secure loans, has meant that many traditional management franchises have become unaffordable for people who still have all the right qualities to make a successful franchisee.

'Cleaning is a relatively recession-proof industry, which makes this an excellent time to invest in a contract cleaning franchise. We cannot let problems with bank funding prevent those people with the right skills and motivation from realising their ambition to start their own business. So we have moved swiftly to develop a new product, which responds to the current market conditions.

'The new Flexible Franchise will suit people with a commercial background who are motivated to build a business within a proven structure, but who are not looking for the same level of guaranteed sales which our standard minimum level product offers. Effectively, we are giving people the chance to buy the level of guaranteed sales they can afford because we can adapt this product to suit an individual's financial requirements.'

Critically, however, new entrants in the Flexible Franchise programme will still have access to all the industry-recognised Jani-King training and support programmes. Thomas adds: 'It is important that we maintain the integrity of the Jani-King brand, so we will carefully select new entrants to the Flexible Franchise programme, but we believe it will bring a different type of dynamism to our existing franchisee base, and continue to expand the nation-wide reach of our franchisee base.

'The Jani-King franchise is highly attractive because it can be operated on very low overheads and is a cost-variable format. Historically we have always seen an upturn in demand for our franchises in times of economic pressure because of the robustness of the cleaning industry,'

Published: 24 November 2008

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