A Study on the Status and Prospect of Franchise Industry in the Republic of Korea

Franchise is the most advanced system in the distribution industry in the 21st century, and competitive franchise brands will continue to emerge even in the pandemic era such as the COVID-19. If you express to COVID-19 with a single word, you can use the word “speed.” A society that takes for granted that business, work, and daily life goes untact (non-face-to-face) has come earlier than we expected due to COVID-19. The society separates the world by dividing into pre-COVID-19 and post COVID-19. Even before COVID-19, the world continued to change, and the pattern or direction of change can be regarded as same as before but the speed only has changed. Now, franchise businesses and companies lacking the tools and digital capabilities of the 4th industrial revolution are no longer feasible to survive. The technology in untact business was existing before COVID-19. With COVID-19, people just feel familiarized with untact technology. The core of this situation is the deepening of tools in the fourth industrial revolution and digitalization. Especially, the dissemination of artificial intelligence(AI) will be expedited. This study focuses on finding the direction of development in Korea’s franchise industry in post-COVID-19 era and with COVID-19, and presents the academic and practical implications obtained through this study.