MGM Resorts International Franchise Market Entry Plan
This paper presents a comprehensive implementation plan for MGM Resorts International to enter the franchise market as a strategy for growth despite high debt levels. The plan outlines how MGM can leverage its strong brand reputation by selling franchise agreements to business partners in the leisure and gaming resort sector. It details functional tactics, action items, milestones, resource allocation, organizational change management, and key success factors. The paper also addresses contingency planning for risks such as franchisee access to capital, macroeconomic environmental influences, and general operational risks, drawing on established frameworks in strategic management and franchise economics.
- Introduction: MGM's Franchise Growth Strategy: MGM's debt drives franchise model adoption
- Implementation Plan and Objectives: Phased objectives over eight-year timeline
- Functional Tactics and Action Items: Marketing, staffing, and franchise tools development
- Milestones, Deadlines, and Resource Allocation: Key benchmarks and physical, financial resources
- Organizational Change Management and Key Success Factors: Staff engagement and franchise compliance monitoring
- Contingency Planning: Capital, Environment, and General Risks: Risk mitigation for capital, economics, and operations
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies a clear, hierarchical structure that mirrors a real-world business plan, making it easy for readers to follow the progression from strategy to execution.
- It grounds abstract strategic concepts in concrete milestones and deadlines, demonstrating an understanding of operational planning rather than theory alone.
- The contingency planning section shows critical thinking by anticipating specific risks — capital access, macroeconomic shifts, and franchise uptake — and proposing targeted responses for each.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively integrates cited theoretical frameworks (Mintzberg et al., Blair & Lafontaine, Hitt et al.) with applied business planning, showing how scholarly concepts such as functional tactics, franchise economics, and geographic diversification translate into organizational action. This theory-to-practice synthesis is a hallmark of strong business strategy writing at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a rationale for the franchise model given MGM's debt constraints, then moves through a numbered implementation plan covering objectives, functional tactics, action items, milestones, resource allocation, and change management. It concludes with a structured contingency plan divided into three subsections: capital access, environmental influences, and general risks. Each section builds logically on the last, creating a coherent planning document.
Introduction: MGM's Franchise Growth Strategy
MGM Resorts International has a desire to grow, but is held back by a high level of debt that may stifle the capital requirements needed for traditional organic growth strategies. An approach that will mitigate this shortfall and allow the firm to build on its existing strong reputation is the use of a franchise model — selling franchises to business partners who will use the MGM brand name and provide services using the MGM operating model (Mintzberg et al., 2011). This is a new strategy that will require a detailed implementation plan.
Implementation Plan and Objectives
To implement a franchise strategy for selling franchises for leisure and gaming resorts, MGM Resorts International will undertake a clear and defined course of action. The strategy will be implemented over the period of one year, with the recognition that any franchise agreements reached with trading partners may take longer to implement — especially if the partner will be building a new resort to carry the MGM name (Mintzberg et al., 2011).
Objectives
The objectives of the implementation plan are as follows:
1. The establishment of a specialized franchise division within the company, focusing initially on the sale of franchise agreements and then the monitoring of those agreements to ensure full compliance. The franchise division will be set up within a period of three months, after which the department will be ready to begin marketing franchises to potential business partners.
2. Negotiations to have commenced with at least two potential franchisees by the end of the first year.
3. At least two franchise agreements to be agreed and signed by the end of the second year.
4. At least five major leisure and gaming franchise resorts to be open and operating within a period of eight years.
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