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Franchising contributes significantly to national economies but is overlooked in supply chain literature. This study aims to contribute to the franchising and supply chain literature by examining how the digitisation of the franchising supply chain improves firm performance.

A single longitudinal case study approach was selected to investigate how a leading coffee brand digitised its franchising supply chain. Resource constraints theory and agency theory provide the theoretical framework. Data collection included both qualitative and quantitative data. Over two years, chronological, supply chain and thematic analyses and interpretation uncovered important findings and developed four research propositions.

Findings show that digitisation can impact performance in eight areas: Resource management, Resource constraints, Efficiency, Business-to-Business (B2B)/Business-To-Customer (B2C) links, Rapid expansion, Risk mitigation, Information asymmetries and Faster supply chain responses. Four digital technologies (advanced analytics, Internet of Things, Autonomous Mobile Robots and B2B e-shop) impacted three franchisor functions (Machine maintenance, Inventory management, Franchisee and end-customer relations). The study develops four research propositions on how digitisation impacts performance in terms of (1) resource monitoring and control, (2) learning and knowledge creation, (3) coordination and collaboration and (4) competition.

Franchising supply chains have been overlooked in the literature; this study provides insights into using resource constraints theory and agency theory complementarily to explain supply chain digitisation and provides actionable practical implications for selecting, implementing and continuously improving Industry 4.0 technologies in franchising supply chains.

Technological disruption has transformed the traditional ways of doing business in the real estate sectors. As a result of the new business realities, technology has become an integral part of the real estate business. However, due to the significant barrier to the incorporation of the technology among modern real estate start-ups, there is a need to assess the adoption and willingness to use property management software.

The study employed an exploratory research design. The study adopts a total enumeration of real estate start-up firms in Lagos, Nigeria, to ensure true representations among the respondents and reduce sampling errors. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study revealed that the majority of the respondents are aware of the identified property management software but tenant verification software recorded the highest level of awareness and usage. The finding also revealed that the association between the availability of staff competence, practicality of the software, ease of use, data ownership and copyright, financial resources, future-proof technology track, Internet connection, perceived benefits and productivity and branding are statistically significant in influencing the level of adoption among the respondents.

The researchers had initial challenges with the attitude of respondents to willingness and timely disbursement of information which was later resolved by explaining the significance for the study. The findings of the research will be useful and serve as an eye opener to practitioners, the conventional real estate surveying and valuation firms, to relevance of software technology in enhancing their operations and efficiency, while it can also boost the academic curriculum.

The knowledge about the adoption of property management software will equip real estate tech start-ups with the right information.

The paper is significant because the ultimate goal of this study is to document the empirical investigation on the level of adoption and application of emerging software among real estate tech start-ups in the Nigerian property market to facilitate the efficiency and delivery of property management services.