Twice a year, the FKI assesses the economic climate within member systems. While this collapsed at the start of the pandemic in the first half of 2020 to 122%, summer 2021 brought the barometer back up to a positive 145%. With coronavirus once again rearing its head at the end of 2021, this value dropped only a little to 142%, thus remaining almost at its pre-crisis level. The slight weakening of the positive mood is confirmed by a comparison of both franchisors and partners. If the franchis-ing systems surveyed were expressly positive before the coronavirus crisis (mood is outstanding: 23%, mood is good: 58%), these values remain suppressed atFranchise climate index (FKI) shows: the mood is slightly clouded compared to last year. Twice a year, the FKI assesses the economic climate within member systems. While this collapsed at the start of the pandemic in the first half of 2020 to 122%, summer 2021 brought the barometer back up to a positive 145%. With coro-navirus once again rearing its head at the end of 2021, this value dropped only a little to 142%, thus remaining almost at its pre-crisis level. The slight weakening of the positive mood is confirmed by a comparison of both franchisors and partners. If the franchising systems surveyed were expressly positive before the coronavirus crisis (mood is outstanding: 23%, mood is good: 58%), these values remain sup-pressed at present, with 17% (outstanding) and 42% (good); nevertheless, they still reflect optimism even in the present situation. 30% were more of a neutral opinion, with 9% and 2% assessing the atmosphere as bad or very bad respectively. The franchise partners’ estimation dropped off somewhat more precipitously. If, before the crisis, 84% of them were at outstanding/good, 4% at bad/very bad and 12% neutral – an unusually positive result – this slipped downwards in the second year of coronavirus. Currently, 50% of the franchisees indicated an outstanding/good mood. By contrast, 25% of them indicated bad/very bad. 25% of them were neutral. “Natu-rally, the mood in some parts of the franchise systems has clouded. After two years of pandemic-related losses, this is not surprising. But with the Franchise Climate Index, with its differentiated survey focuses, giving such a constant picture, we can clearly detect stability and resilience in robust system structures. Good conditions indeed for weathering a crisis with determination,” Torben Leif Brodersen, Chief Ex-ecutive of the German Franchise Association, suggests.