Despite being the .......... partner in the relationship, the franchiser does not always have all the .............

Here we are looking for words such that the second word is usually seen as a result of the first and we should keep in mind that the sentence is about a business partnership (from the use of the word franchiser). So we can eliminate options A and B. 
Option D is a good choice, but it would have been better if the second word was of a more positive essence. 
Hence we go with option D, which fulfils all the criteria.