Dow Jones began as a niche reporting and news company focused on Wall Street and founded in 1882. As the global marketplace for finance expanded so too did the market for information services and connectivity between the financial minds of the world. Dow Jones quickly took a position of market leadership position with the popular publication Wall Street Journal and by setting the stock market bar through the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Charles Dow writes for the Journal and as the market gains attention so too does the circulation and readership of the paper. When the organization was acquired in 1902 by Clarence Barron, the company officially began to expand into a national brand name.
As the network and customer base for Dow Jones expanded, the need for a global franchise became apparent. New divisions within the organization were developed in order to facilitate and manage this growth while maintaining a high degree of readership and quality of content. In 1976, The Asian Wall Street Journal was launched and in 1983, The Wall Street Journal Europe was launched and in 1995, WSJ.com was put to market and Dow Jones officially joined the world of e-commerce by becoming the world’s most successful paid news website.
In 2007, when Dow Jones is acquired by News Corp, the world’s largest global media company, the organization truly becomes the standard for global business news. With this expansion came the need for a wider franchise, one that could appeal and be relevant to markets around the world and with this came acquisition of media outlets and business information service providers in different parts of the globe. One of these acquisitions was Zawya, the leader in Middle Eastern business information services. Zawya had in a relatively short time period established itself as being the leader for providing information and transparency to business in the middle east. As a way of culture and business, the Middle East was known for being secretive and difficult for even insiders to trade and understand how to navigate the market. Zawya’s mission was to shed light on the market and provide depth and insight into this growing region for business and commerce.
Zawya was a widely popular information site for populations that resided in the MENA region, but had not spread to most parts of the world. In 2009, Dow Jones hired Franchise Marketing Systems to develop a franchise system and network for Zawya in order to create traffic and monetize the site’s traffic and access to information in the Middle East. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE were garnering much attention from the global business marketplace, so the timing was right to expand this franchise and develop the business model. Currently, Zawya was monetized by an in-house sales team based in Dubai selling memberships and services for the information services company. It had become clear that the ability of UAE-based sales professionals to market to those in the U.S. and other Western Countries was limited and that a local sales organization would be needed to expand effectively. Franchise Marketing Systems developed a franchise platform to sell countries and large regions to professionals who had contacts and the ability to create sales teams in their respective markets. Franchise Marketing Systems developed the franchise market research, developed the franchise business plan and created the franchise training materials. Once the franchise model was in place, the team of consultants created a sales and marketing model that allowed Zawya to expand into Germany, China, Ireland, Great Britain and the U.S. with the sale of Master Franchise territories. Quickly, Dow Jones was able to realize monetary gains through a localized and independently operated sales team of franchise owners around the world.
Zawya was expanded using a traditional franchise system where sales and business development territories are sold to qualified investors. The purpose of the franchise model is to create a sales team that has a vested interest in the success of the model and works the business with more consistency and ultimately better performance.
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FMS is a team of expert franchise consulting professionals based in Canada that provides solutions for franchise development, franchise consultation, and expansion of businesses globally.