Supply Chain Issues in Vietnam. Critical issues for international Fast Food Companies

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Orientation
2.1 Fast Food Franchising
2.2 Supply Chain Management in the Catering Industry
2.3 Vietnam’s Consumer Market
2.4 Franchising in Vietnam
2.5 Local Sourcing
2.6 Importing products to Vietnam
2.7 Vietnam’s Logistics and Transport Infrastructure

3. Research methodology
3.1 Data collection methodology
3.2 Data Analysis

4. Key Findings
4.1 Sourcing locally
4.1.1 Challenge of finding local supplier
4.1.2 Qualifying Local Suppliers
4.1.3 Transportation Challenges
4.1.4 Recommendations to reduce the challenges of sourcing locally
4.2 Import based Franchise Systems
4.2.1 Long and Uncertain Supply Chain
4.2.2 High Import Duties
4.2.3 Recommendations to improve the supply chain for import based concepts
4.3 Finding suitable Master Franchisees
4.3.1 Recommendations to Find Suitable Franchisees
4.4 Finding suitable retail outlets
4.4.1 Recommendations to reduce Retail Space Challenges

5. Key Implications

6. Conclusion

7. Reference list

Appendix A - What is Franchising?

Appendix B - Relational Dynamics in Franchising

Appendix C - Supply Chain Management

Appendix D - Vietnam Market

Appendix E - Legal Framework for Franchising in Vietnam

Appendix F - Supermarkets and retail outlets

Appendix G - Food Manufacturers in Vietnam

Appendix H - Import Statistics

Appendix I - Food Import Regulations

Appendix J - Transport Statistics

Appendix K - Sample Interview Questions

Appendix L - Vietnamese Restaurants before getting turned into a Franchise outlet

Preface

For the past thirteen years I have been part of the hospitality and tourism industry. It is not just one of the most interesting, dynamic and challenging industries in the world but also enabled me to go out and see the world and meet all kind of interesting people. During those years I was fortunate enough to have work in a variety of positions in several leading hotels, fine dining restaurants, bars and even on a cruise liner. Working and studying in countries like Switzerland, France, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, Mexico or Vietnam has given me a broad variety of different insights in how to run and manage F&B operations and how to provide VIP services to all sorts of different guests. Especially, hosting celebrities like Bill Gates, Kofi Annan, Dick Cheney, Angela Merkel, Michail Gorbatschow, Simon Peres and Hugh Hefner were some of the many highlights throughout the past few years

Being in tourism and hospitality also has given me the possibility to travel to over 52 countries until know, most of them while I was working on a luxury cruise liner. Although there are several countries that had some impacts on my personal development, the probably biggest impacts outside Switzerland I have experienced in Vietnam where I have been living since 2008. During those 5 years I not only married my wonderful wife but was also involved in designing and opening a 5 star boutique resort, creating and successfully launching my first venture and bringing the well respected “accueil” examinations for tourism and hotel staff from Switzerland to Asia. Moreover, I also have been involved in several restaurant and hotel openings and concept creations throughout Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore and managed to complete my MBA. The MBA was one of the most fruitful and interesting time in my life and I am grateful to have met very interesting students from a several different countries. Since some of the key subjects were Franchising, Supply Chain Management and Operations and Process Management, this research project is based on the final project of my MBA which I completed with a Distinction

Living and working in Vietnam can be an interesting and intensive experience at times since the country is extremely young and fast growing. The potential for tourism and hospitality are huge and we can say that the country is tourism wise still a rather new destination. However, hospitality is growing all over the country and big international hotel chains like Hyatt Hotels, Sheraton, Hilton, Novotel, Marriott, MGM Grand, Nikko Hotels, Crown Plaza and InterContinental have already entered the country and are operating since the last few years. The famous western style restaurant chains on the other hand are still not that common in Vietnam

Although Vietnam has a growing economy and young population craving for western food concepts, so far just a few big international fast food franchises have entered Vietnam and most of them are operating for only a few years. The conspicuous absence of some highly successful multinational franchises like McDonald’s begs the question, why are they not operating in Vietnam and why do international fast food franchise companies that are currently operating in Vietnam mainly operate in HCMC and Hanoi?

The research identified that there are several issues international fast food franchise companies need to overcome when operating in Vietnam. Most of the issues are supply chain related and may vary from finding suitable local partners and good retail outlets to having long supply chains with obscure import procedures and high import duties. Moreover, the weak domestic infrastructure such as poorly established railway or road system, substandard port infrastructure or warehouses make storing and shipping within Vietnam a challenge too

The aim of this research is to illuminate issues for both existing and potential franchisors in the areas of franchising and supply chain management in Vietnam, meaning that the results of this research not only help international fast food franchises that are already operating in Vietnam to improve the management of their supply chain but also help international fast food franchises by getting a better understanding of the Vietnam market and some of its challenges before starting to operate in Vietnam

The author used a qualitative research approach for the study incorporating both secondary data and primary data. The primary data was collected through focused semi-structured interviews with various franchise and supply chain industry professionals in Vietnam

The result of this research is a summary of critical issues supply chain issues international fast food franchise companies face when operating in Vietnam. The author also provides a variety of recommendations of how to overcome the identified issues

About the Author

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Sascha Spiegel provides professional and customized training solutions to optimize business performance for hotels, restaurants and sales outlets

Over the past 13 years, Sascha has completed various assignments in leading 5-star hotels and fine dining restaurants around the globe. Recently, he was awarded the Certified Hospitality Trainer designation by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute due to his extensive professional and operational experiences. During his career at Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Kempinski Hotels & Resorts and the Richemont Group, Sascha developed leadership skills when holding positions such as Head Waiter, Head Bar Waiter, F&B Supervisor, Operations Manager and Acting General Manager

Sascha earned the respected Eidg., Dipl. Hotelier/Restaurateur HF title from the Hotel Management School Thun (Switzerland) and completed his MBA at the Australian Institute for Business (Adelaide, Australia). He also received credentials from studying languages and economy at educational institutions like ACE Sydney (Australia), Medialangues Guadeloupe (France) and Universidad Internacional Cuernavaca (Mexico)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

In 2009, Sascha founded Elation Group

The group offers assistance and consulting services to hoteliers, restaurateurs and franchisors in designing, improving and/or implementing concepts, policies, procedures, service delivery systems and/or overall business processes. Moreover, Elation Group provides customized training courses for line employees, supervisors and managers who are working in the catering, franchising, hospitality and service industry. Elation’s training courses enhance the participants’ skills of delivering an excellent service and improve the participants’ professional and industry specific knowledge. The training only covers needed and relevant topics and incorporates your policies, procedures and documents (if desired) so that every participant understands their importance from an industry expert

Elation Group is also the official representative of “accueil” language courses for tourism and hotel staff in Asia and closely cooperates with the “accueil” Language Center (Switzerland), the Hotel Management School Thun (Switzerland), the Swiss Hotel Association and ICC (Germany). “accueil” language courses are internationally accredited certifications of foreign language competence and help tourism and hotel staff to develop industry relevant communication skills

All courses and consultancy services are based on a need assessment and delivered fully customized. That is, Elation’s customers can decide where, how often and when the sessions take place

The flexible and tailor-made services but as well the success orientated pricing policy underline what Elation is all about, your:

Solution to elevate Business Performance and Service Quality

Acknowledgments

In preparing this report, I unashamedly exploited friends and colleagues. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to the following individuals for their valuable and helpful contributions through interviews, reviewing, providing feedback, making suggestions, connecting me to industry experts and assisting me with the needed mechanics and writing techniques

For their help I am in particular grateful to:

Thomas Jakobsen (MBA lecturer in Strategic Operations Issues and Supply Chain Management) who guided me through the development process of this report and provided me with helpful feedback and suggestions to develop this report so that it serves a market need

James Wold (Lecturer at ERCI institute Vietnam and academic writing expert) who helped me to review the report several times. His great feedback and suggestions were not only very helpful but also highly appreciated

Robert Wood (Tourism and Hospitality Expert and Educator) who inspired me to chose this research topic. He also was a great help to get the research going, helping me with reviewing parts of the content and he also took his valuable time to answer some research related questions

Sean Ngo (Franchising Expert) who helped me a lot by providing me with interesting insights about Franchising in Vietnam. His expert knowledge and industry awareness, especially in Fast Food Franchising, were of great help

Special thanks go as well to Mr. Warren Eng (General Manager of ERC Institute Vietnam) and Ms. Hoan Tran (SSA Manager at ERC Institute Vietnam) who made it possible for me to take the MBA program which resulted in this research project. Their immense financial support is highly appreciated. On this occasion I would also like to express my thankfulness to Ms. Phuong Nguyen (MBA Program Manager) who was a great support during the development of this report

I would also like to extend my gratitude to Peter Lester, Khai Tran, Andrew Sadler, Lena Bucatariu, Nicholas Ippel, Kathy Peters, Daniel Thomas, John Mortimer, Dr. Habib Kassim, Dr. Chuck Wilson, Tien Gia Tri, Simon Self, Brian O’Reilly, Didi Nguyen, Ilgmars Valts, Huong Nguyen, Mathieu Baudouin and Dang Van Tram for their valuable contribution through interviews, providing moral support, reviewing content, answering questions or providing me with valuable information or helpful feedback

The hardworking team at Elation Group and colleagues and friends at “accueil” Language Center, ERC Institute and other partner companies also deserve a very big thank you. Your support, dedication, passion and commitment make work not only extremely fun and pleasant but also very productive

Heartfelt thanks to my parents, my brother and especially my grandparents but also to my godmother, aunties and uncles and close friends. Without their huge financial and/or moral support throughout my entire life and supporting me with decisions I take in both private and professional life, this report would not be in your hands

I would also like to thank my parents in law, my sister and brother in law and little Kitty for their moral support during the last few months and accepting my absence during several family reunions and family dinners due to spending my time in weekend or evening classes, being at work, studying and/or writing assignments

With grace I extend my hand in admiration and appreciation to Thu, my supportive wife, soul mate, best friend and business partner, for her ongoing acceptance, encouragement and contributions every day. Creating the Elation Group and studying the MBA while growing the business would have been impossible to achieve without her great and professional support with relatively little complaints and frustration

Last but not least I express my thanks to YOU, the reader of this report. I hope that the coming pages will be pleasant to read and trust that they will give you some interesting and new insights about Franchising and Supply Chain Management in developing countries like Vietnam

1. Introduction

Vietnam’s growing economy, rising GDP and young population with increasing disposable income, craving for western food concepts make the country an attractive market for international fast food franchises. However, so far just a few big international fast food franchises such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Subway, Lotteria and Jollibee have entered the market and most of those franchises have been operating in Vietnam for only a few years and have not expanded beyond the population dense urban areas of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and Hanoi. Other big franchises like McDonald’s or Wendy’s have yet to enter the Vietnam market and Burger King is currently opening their first few stores in HCMC. The conspicuous absence of these highly successful multinational franchises begs the question, why are they not operating in Vietnam and why do the international fast food franchise companies that are currently operating in Vietnam mainly operate only in HCMC and Hanoi?

In most of the cases, international fast food franchise companies seem to face supply chain related issues that either disable them to enter Vietnam or hinder them to expand throughout the country. Therefore, this research aims to identify and analyze the critical supply chain issues international fast food franchises face when operating in Vietnam.

To meet the requirements of the project, this research will focus on single-point quick service restaurant franchises such as Lotteria, Burger King, Subway, KFC, Carl’s Jr. and similar quick service restaurants that are operating in Vietnam.

Even though supply chain management is a major component of successful fast food franchising concepts and more often than not a key factor that generates a competitive advantage, so far there has been little research to analyze and uncover the critical supply chain related issues international franchise companies face when operating in Vietnam (Eastham 2012). Previous research on Supply Chain Management related challenges in Vietnam or on Franchising in Vietnam mainly focused on franchising law, business law, the consumer market and/or doing business in Vietnam. Moreover, most of the research is descriptive material for foreign investors and focuses heavily on the rationale for investing into Vietnam rather than on how to operate the business in Vietnam.

This research topic is important because the themes of the study will illuminate issues for both existing and potential franchisors in the areas of franchising and supply chain management in Vietnam, meaning that the results of this research not only help international fast food franchises that are already operating in Vietnam to improve the management of their supply chain but also help international fast food franchises by getting a better understanding of the Vietnam market and some of its challenges before starting to operate in Vietnam.

To continue the research of critical supply chain issues international fast food franchise companies face when operating in Vietnam the author suggests to continue analyzing additional international fast food franchise companies and also to conduct interviews with other parties involved in the supply chain processes such as customs officers, international suppliers, and logistic companies.

Moreover, domestic supply chain issues such as laws and regulations, the local transportation network, lead times from Vietnamese warehouses to franchise outlets and storage facilities in regions outside of HCMC and Hanoi should be investigated further.

This paper has a total of six sections. The first section is the introduction followed by the second section which gives an overview of franchising and supply chain management in Vietnam. The third section describes the research methodologies used during this research, the fourth section discovers key findings, the fifth section lists the key implications, and the last section concludes the findings and the research.

2. Orientation

In this section, the author will provide some general information about Franchising, the Vietnam market and supply chain related issues companies might encounter when operating in Vietnam.

2.1 Fast Food Franchising

In a franchise system¹ there is usually a franchisor which is the owner of a product or business format and at least one franchisee that invests in one or more layouts (franchises) in order to operate it/them according to the franchisors business format. As the franchisor-franchisee relationship is a key to success or failure in every franchise system, understanding how the relationship within the franchising system works is crucial. The Franchise Relationship Model (Figure 2.1) uses the market, financials, contract and information as main cornerstones and puts the customer so as the Service Delivery System (SDS) into the centre (Spinelli 2003).

Figure 2.1: Franchise Relationship Model (Spinelli 2003)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

The customer and the SDS get surrounded by major events in the franchise system such as transaction analysis, financial structure, agency issues and rational dynamics. Purvin has proven that the more complicated the business format, the more likely conflicts will arise between different parties within the network. So Franchisors employ simple, standardized business models (2008).

However, having a standardized operation also means that franchisees need to follow tight product specifications, purchasing criteria, policies and procedures, work manuals, recipes and other business processes (Spinelli 2003). As achieving those standardized service delivery systems is even more challenging in less developed countries like Vietnam it is likely that arising challenges in the supply chain and/or service delivery system may negatively affect the relationship between the franchisor and franchisee as the franchisee is often left alone when trying to solve the problems (Purvin 2008).

Next to the FRM, there are relational dynamics that affect the franchisor-franchisee relationship. The individual components of the relational dynamics are wealth creation, communications, the brand and the exit costs² (Lesonsky 2007).

2.2 Supply Chain Management in the Catering Industry

Supply chain management³ which includes all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in- process inventory and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption plays an increasingly important role in the food service industry in general and in fast food franchising in particular, especially as delivering meals at reasonable prices in an ever-changing marketplace becomes an increasing challenge for many food service providers (Christopher 2011; Kwansa 2002).

The increasing commodity prices, ever rising product quality concerns and a growing need to ensure that safe products are entering the restaurants increase the importance of supply chain management in the catering industry (Erickson 2012). The fact that a typical restaurant spends approximately 30 percent of its sales on food purchases underlines the importance of managing the supply chain properly, especially as an effective and well managed supply chain can significantly reduce the cost of goods sold (O’Reilly 2008).

According to the conducted interviews, another characteristic of a typical restaurant operation in Vietnam is the limited storage space while dealing with a great variety of seasonal and perishable products.

In-bound lead times are usually short and the demand usually predictable, which allows restaurants to implement a Kanban system (Figure 2.2) to keep inventories as low as possible (Christopher 2011). This can be achieved by purchasing most food items Just-in-Time which is a common ordering practice in many Vietnamese restaurants (O’Reilly 2008).

Supply chain management becomes even more important for Quick Service Restaurants as it usually is a major component of successful fast food concepts and a strong competitive advantage of QSR franchises (Eastham 2012).

Figure 2.2: Supply Chain Strategies (Christopher 2011)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

The main purpose of franchise systems is growing the network to increase economy of scale and brand recognition. Their complex, resilient, synchronized and highly efficient supply chains are designed to generate economy of scale and usually become even more powerful as they grow.

Franchisors typically collect a significant amount of data from their outlets, it is possible to anticipate needed reorder levels and expected reorder dates which optimizes the supply chain synchronization. Yet, demand can’t always be accurately predicted and may change suddenly. To avoid that outlets run out of stock most franchise systems follow a hybrid strategy (Figure 2.2) and de-couple their supply chain through postponement (Christopher 2011).

Therefore, most franchises use a similar supply chain model like that of McDonald’s (Figure 2.3).

Those supply chains are usually lean between Suppliers and Distribution Centers, followed by an agile supply chain between the Distribution Center and the individual outlets. The Distribution Centers receive products in bulk and store them. Once individual outlets place orders, the DCs break the bulk, prepare the required order(s) and distribute to the outlets (Saravanan 2012).

Figure 2.3: Typical Supply Chain Network of McDonald’s (Saravanan 2012)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

According to a conducted interview with a former owner of a 45-unit restaurant chain in the USA, Franchisees of those supply chain networks benefit from the network’s learning curves and economies of scale. Those franchise networks also create high brand awareness, can spend a lot of money on advertising and R&D and usually have a large amount of cash ready to invest.

2.3 Vietnam’s Consumer Market

Since the sweeping liberalization in all sectors of its previously hardline, centrally planned, and closed economy in 1986, Vietnam has been experiencing fast and steady economical development. New foreign and local investments during the first decade of the new millennium and joining the WTO in 2007 have increased Vietnamese living standard, individual disposable income, while national GNP and GDP have grown significantly⁴ (World Trade Organization 2012).

Figure 2.4: GDP per Capita between 2000 – 2012 (Doing Business in Vietnam 2012)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

The country is also experiencing heavy population growth (since 1980) and is expected to reach the 90 million people mark in 2012. The fact that 50 million people are under the age of 30 makes Vietnam one of the youngest and most dynamic countries in the world⁵ (Doing Business in Vietnam 2012). Vietnam has, like many other Asian countries, a high dining out ratio, and consuming food with family, friends and even during business negotiations and meetings is very common and is part of Vietnamese daily life (Balmer 2009).

Figure 2.5: Population Growth Rate between 2000 - 2011 (Doing Business in Vietnam 2012)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

2.4 Franchising in Vietnam

The improved business conditions, established franchise law⁶, increasing living standard and Vietnam’s young, food savvy population predict that Vietnam is a suitable country for international fast food franchises (Burke 2011; Tilleke 2010). According to the conducted interviews with franchise experts, Franchisors don’t develop or operate stores in Vietnam by themselves but enter the market through Master Franchisees. The franchisors mainly help to design, build and open some restaurants, providing training to supervisors and to qualify suppliers. Some franchisors do frequent quality controls to ensure that the Master Franchisees perform to the required standards.

As identified during an interview with a leading Franchise Consultant in Vietnam, there are several reasons why Franchisors don’t establish business in Vietnam. One of the reasons is that foreigners or foreign entities can’t own a restaurant and/or land in Vietnam. Franchises like McDonald’s like to own their retail outlets or food manufacturing plants are, therefore, less interested in entering the Vietnam market. Another reason is the price sensitive market in Vietnam which has only a limited number of people who can afford eating Western Food regularly. Therefore, it is unlikely that franchises make huge profits in Vietnam during the coming years. Burger King for instance entered Vietnam mainly to get first mover advantages over McDonald’s (Cricenti 2012).

Being unable to set up a proper business in Vietnam creates a lack of control and makes the operation more risky. Choosing a suitable Master Franchisee and establishing proper control mechanisms is therefore a critical success factor when franchising in Vietnam.

2.5 Local Sourcing

Purchasing is a vital element of any restaurant operation. Food item purchases particularly affect the overall operating costs of a restaurant. However, the consensus among interviewed industry experts, is that local sourcing in Vietnam is still a big challenge for many restaurants.

Purchasing in Vietnam is unique and still in an early stage of development as most Vietnamese citizens purchase groceries at small street vendors, small family-owned stores and/or in traditional open-air markets. Since the few available professional suppliers don’t offer the same variety and their prices are significantly higher than those of the small local suppliers, even restaurants and hotels buy their products mainly from local markets, despite the fact that food quality and hygiene conditions are very basic in those places. This purchasing behaviour hinders the development of supermarkets and hard-to- find professional food suppliers which are predominantly located in Hanoi and HCMC⁷ (Figuié 2008). Another reason why food retailing in Vietnam still is in its early stage might be the fact that Vietnam discourages Foreign Direct Investment in the food retail sector to protect domestic companies which are slowly adopting modern retail methods (Balmer 2009).

Figure 2.6: Vietnam’s Retail Market Share (Balmer 2009)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

This absence of supermarkets and professional suppliers with international know-how has a negative effect on the entire purchasing market since professional food distributors tend to increase the overall quality standard of food products because of their strict quality standards when purchasing items from farmers and food manufacturers (Figuié 2008).

Another challenge is the Vietnamese food-manufacturing sector. Although growing rapidly, it is still growing off a low base (Balmer 2009). Most local food manufacturer focus on popular domestic products like fish, seafood, rice, chicken, pork and some vegetables and the number of innovative companies in this sector is small since most of the companies produce basic food items that are suitable for the domestic mass market⁸ (William 2011).

2.6 Importing products to Vietnam

Like many other countries, Vietnam imports a wide mix of different products from around the world⁹. In general, all goods crossing Vietnamese borders are subject to import duties and tariffs. Vietnam offers preferential tax rates to countries or territories that grant most-favoured-nation treatment (MFN) when trading with Vietnam. Goods of countries or territories that don’t grant most-favoured-nation treatment to Vietnam are subject to an ordinary tax rate which is equal to 150% of the preferential tax rate (Stanton, Emms & Sia 2010).

Import of meat and poultry can only be undertaken by an officially approved Vietnamese meat and poultry trading company. All imports of meat and poultry get inspected at the port of entry by the Quarantine Regional Office of the Department of Animal Health, which will issue a quarantine clearance certificate if the products meet the given requirements. Moreover, the import policies and regulations and on-the-ground procedures are obscure and change often which makes the supply chain unpredictable and hard to synchronize (Stanton, Emms & Sia 2010).

The government often imposes surtaxes, such as anti-dumping and countervailing duties and even restricts or bans the import of certain types of products, to protect local businesses¹⁰ (Stanton, Emms & Sia 2010). Interviewing some industry experts revealed that the government imposes high import duties on goods that exist already in Vietnam. Those domestic products either don’t fulfil quality expectations or other critical specifications so a lot of companies have no choice but to import products and pay high import duties.

Yet, even though the countervailing duties are mainly set by the importing country some of the interviewed industry experts expect that anti-dumping and countervailing duties on some items will drop in the coming few years as Vietnam further aligns its economy to the Asian Free Trade Agreement and Word Trade Organization standards (Subsidies and countervailing measures 2012).

2.7 Vietnam’s Logistics and Transport Infrastructure

Even though the government has invested heavily in upgrading its transport infrastructure during the recent years, Vietnam continues to depend on an inadequate road network and an out-dated railway system with limited capacity, preventing the country from meeting its full transport potential. The 93 highways and seven railway routes provide a transport quality which is lower than in most other SouthEast-Asian countries (Johnson 2009).

The largest road connections consist of two lanes in each direction only and are the exception rather than the rule, resulting in a high number of traffic jams, accidents and delays which makes domestic road transportation time consuming and unreliable (dtinews 2011).

Image 2.1: Roads and Train System in Vietnam

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Source: Talkvietnam Source: VN Investment Review Source: Picture taken by author

Even though Vietnam has 49 seaports and 126 river ports and a handful of deep water ports, full container load shipping to Vietnam is still not that established; as a result 80 percent of goods entering Vietnam come from other Asian ports¹¹. According to Chris Runckel, president of a business development consulting firm, there is sufficient wharf space and cargo handling ability (dtinews 2011). However, the poor road connections, the lack of rail capacity and poor service for what capacity there is makes it difficult to move goods from port to the factories and also distribute them within the country (Poor infrastructure hinders freight firms 2012).

3. Research methodology

In this part, the author will describe how the data was collected and analysed.

3.1 Data collection methodology

The author used a qualitative research approach, incorporating secondary and primary data. The secondary data was mainly collected from the internet and included industry analysis, franchising and/or supply chain management related reports, previous researches in franchising and/or supply chain management, general statistics and relevant articles from newspapers, magazines or websites. This was followed by collection of primary data through semi-structured interviews (Saunders 2009).

The interviews addressed the following issues (Cousin 2008).

- Supply Chain Management in a country with:

- Limited infrastructure development
- Lack of suitable supplier or food manufacturing companies
- Long supply chains (physical distance between supplier and purchaser)
- Specific import regulations
- Limited master franchisees
- Many unsuitable and expensive retail outlets

The author gathered insight and pertinent information by way of interviewing Supply Chain, F&B and Franchising experts working in a variety of positions in different companies in Vietnam.

As the author used the semi-structured interview technique, interview questions varied from interview to interview and were conducted face-to-face. The author had a list of topics¹² to be covered and asked questions depending on the flow of the conversation. Some interviews generated additional and sometimes even unexpected questions.

[...]

---

¹ Appendix A - What is Franchising?

² Appendix B - Relational Dynamics in Franchising

³ Appendix C - Supply Chain Management

⁴ Appendix D - Vietnam Market

⁵ Appendix D - Vietnam Market

⁶ Appendix E - Legal Framework for Franchising

⁷ Appendix F - Supermarkets and Retail Outlets

⁸ Appendix G - Food Manufacturers in Vietnam

⁹ Appendix H - Import Statistics

¹⁰ Appendix I - Food Import Regulations

¹¹ Appendix J - Transport Statistics

¹² Appendix K - Possible Interview Topics