According to the Italian Franchise Law, all franchise agreements must contain and describe in detail the specific know-how provided by the franchisor to the franchisee and must have specific requirements. It is therefore important to check whether and how the franchisor’s confidential know-how can be protected in Italy.

The multi-unit franchise model is increasingly widespread in the world, including Italy. Within the MUF model, the Scope Development Pact plays a key role. The Area development scheme offers many advantages to both parties.

Master Franchising is the most common method to expand a franchise in Italy. The popularity of the Master Franchise also has economic reasons, since it generally requires less resources from franchisors and allows for more revenue than direct franchising. In order to achieve this objective, however, certain conditions must be met: firstly, a correct quantification of the proportion of the fees charged by the master franchisee and distributed between the master franchisee and the franchisor, and a careful analysis of performance requirements and expenses.

Usually the first part of a feasibility plan for a franchise expansion project in Italy is an economic-financial analysis. Two of the main elements of this analysis are a good investigation of the Italian market and an analysis of possible changes to the concept of franchising.