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Mcdonald's key resources and capabilities
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PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
The main problem from McDonald's case, McDonald's Polishing the Golden Arches, is how to classify McDonald's strategy through Plan to Win into one of the five generic competitive strategies. Before we solve this main problem, we should determine the chief economic and business characteristics, the five forces analysis, and also the driving forces of the fast-food industry. After that we identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats by using SWOT analysis. Finally, we classify McDonald's strategy into one of the five generic competitive strategies.
ANALYSIS
The chief economic and business characteristics of the fast-food industry
In 2003 sales for the U.S. consumer food-service market totaled approximately $408 billion. For the sandwich segment, the top 30 sandwich chains had U.S. system wide sales of approximately $64 billion. Future growth in the sandwich segment was expected to be only around 2 percent annually for the foreseeable future. McDonald's and Burger King were the earliest and most aggressive hamburger chains to begin to expand internationally. The products of the various sandwich chains in U.S. were strongly differentiated, continuously follow the trends that are changed all the time.
The five forces analysis and the driving forces of the fast-food industry
By using the Porter's five forces model of competition, we identify rivalry among fast-food chains and buyers as the strong forces that make the competition in fast-food industry more and more tighten. In general, McDonald and its main competitors (Burger King Corporation, Wendy's International, Inc., Hardee's, and Jack in the Box) are active in making fresh moves to improve their market standing and bus...
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...simultaneously by making the restaurants more efficient to increase the speed of service and emphasizing hospitality, accuracy, and cleanliness with new training and incentives programs worldwide.
2) Leadership marketing
McDonald should maintain "I'm lovin' it" all the time and treat it more than a marketing campaign in order to deliver a global brand message through advertising, packaging, and restaurant experiences. This can be used for shaping McDonald's employees attitude in serving the customers.
3) Innovation
McDonald must make a lot of innovation in order to satisfy its customers and win the competition because successful innovation can strengthen the market position of the innovating companies. For example, by featuring a variety of Value, Premium, and wholesome menu offerings, McDonald can deliver the right products at the right price for its customers.
The fast food restaurant industry, which includes quick-service and fast-casual restaurants, is highly segmented with the top 50 companies accounting for only 25% of the industry’s sales. The $120 billion industry includes over 200,000 restaurants with 50% of those specializing in hamburger entrees. (hoovers.com 2008) The major competitors in the industry include McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Subway, and KFC – Chick-fil-A’s major competitor in chicken sales. Chick-fil-A’s unique position in the market, specializing in chicken-based entrées, has lead to a competitive advantage which the company has been able to capitalize on. Recently, many competitors have added chicken entrees in order to compete in the market segment. Through marketing strategies and company initiatives, Chick-fil-A has tried to stay distant from competitors, offering a fresh alternative to the ordinary fast food restaurant.
A world without the Big Mac, Happy Meals, Chicken McNuggets, and the phrase “I’m lovin’ it,” is almost inconceivable. People around the globe have become accustomed to the high gleaming golden arches that make up the famous emblem for McDonald’s. McDonald’s has grasped the concept that culture flows from power. In this case, the American culture flows through the veins of this fast-food giant and the more that is supplied, the greater the demand. It is no secret that McDonald’s has become one of the world’s largest fast-food retailers. It has become a well known icon that has played a huge part in globalization, with chains located in many different countries… transforming the meaning of fast-food all around the world.
In order to understand McDonald's structure and culture and why they continue to be the world's largest restaurant chain we conducted a SWOT analysis that allowed us to consider every dimension involved in the business level and corporate level strategies.
McDonald’s Golden French Fries, KFC’s Tender Chicken, Subway’s Scrumptious Subs, Taco Bell’s Mouth-Watering Tacos, all of which and more Americans devour on a regular basis. Though food items such as Tacos and Hamburgers were introduced in the late 19th century- early 20th century, fast-food restaurants however did not come into existence till’ early 1920’s. The first fast-food chain was opened in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. They opened up selling burgers, fries and cola all for a mere price of 5 cents. Fast-food restaurants however did not become popular until after World War 2, when America officially becomes a fast-food nation. White Castle’s founder Walter Anderson’s business model was to have limited amount of choices in immense volume at a low cost. On top of this, the new hamburger restaurants were to serve their customers at lightning quick speed. All of which that creates the business models of fast food franchises, all over the world today. On the other hand the McDonald brothers introduced the method of making food at a low production cost. Making the food the customer eat low quality but still be giving costumers mouths tastes of heaven. Millions of Americans everyday munch on fast-food; although a vast number of Americans detests the fast food industry argue it has led to obesity and frailty in America. On the other hand numerous Americans argue saying that the Fast-food chains have boosted the unstable American Economy and continues to produce jobs compared to many America corporations who outsource their jobs. This brings up the question, is the fast food industry a devil or angel to this fast food nation?
OPPORTUNITIES: McDonalds has many opportunities to change its look, menu, and customer service. McDonald’s started building newer building incorporating the arch, along with more modern furnishings. The menu has changed by adding more breakfast items and introducing the McCafe in certain areas.
For assessing the industry profitability, Porter 5 Forces analysis tools were used to analyze one organization evaluation. In this case, the technique were used to analyze 7-Eleven Convenience Store specifically in Malaysia. Porter 5 Forces consists of 5 important area which is Threat of New Entrants, Bargaining Power of customers, Threat of substitute Products and services, Bargaining Power of suppliers, and competitive rivalry within the industry. Theoretically, the more powerful these forces in an industry, the lower its profit potential. The strength of each force differs by industry and changes over time. The competitive advantage that 7-Eleven has using these five forces is it has raised the barrier of entry for other competitors to enter the convenience store market as new competitors will require a huge capital investment in order to implement the information technology in their business in order to be competitive. Also, hypothetically being the first in the market, 7-Eleven could have made contracts with the Malaysia government to not allow other 24-hour convenience stores in the market for a certain time period, such as Astro had done, thus having a monopoly market in the beginning of their operations which will allow them to target a bigger market share.
Vignali, C. (2001). McDonald’s: “think global, act local”--the marketing mix. British Food Journal, 103(2), pp.97--111.
Strategic management is the way of implementing different business strategies and plans to attain certain specific aims and objectives. It involves collection of decisions and different rules and policies that tend to define the results that are generated in the form of better business performance. For undertaking these activities, management should possess an in depth understanding and be able to assess the general and competitive external and internal business environment to take proper business decisions (Cornelis, 2010). McDonalds is an organization that offers a range of products and services in a very effective manner that makes it a market leader in providing fast food services all over the world. By enforcing suitable strategies, McDonalds can increase its level of sales and will also help in upgrading as well as sustaining the market by acquiring competitive advantage (Schoenberg, Collier and Bowman, 2013).
Have you ever wondered how the business empire of McDonalds was started? With over ninety nine billion served, it was started in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. It was started off as just a Bar-B-Q that served just twenty items. Its first mascot was named “Speedee” They eventually realized that by setting up their kitchen like an assembly line that they could be much more productive and get their food done faster, with every employee doing a specified job; the restaurants production rate became much higher. A milkshake machine vendor came into their small restaurant one day, his name was Ray Kroc. He saw how much potential the restaurant has, so he bought it out and opened one of the first franchises. Within the first year of Ray Kroc buying it, there were one hundred and two locations all around the world. McDonalds currently is one of the largest fast food restaurants in the world and currently has served over sixty four million customers through one of their thirty two thousand sites. It has almost become a way of life for America. Though, McDonalds started off as a small business between two brothers, it grew into one of the largest restaurant franchises in the world and greatly affects our society and how we eat our food.
This particular case is about the implementation of the popular fast-food chain, Burger King, into the Japanese market. Despite its’ strong market position in other countries, Burger King has some difficulties to face within the Japanese market. In this report, my team and I will analyze Burger King’s current situation and problems and suggest alternatives.
McDonalds has always been a leader in the fast food industry. Through its dynamic market expansion, new products and special promotional strategies, it has succeeded in making a name for itself in the minds of the target customers. However, McDonald’s earnings has declined in the late 1990’s and 2000s. This is mainly due to a fiercely competitive industry and variety in customer tastes and preferences.
These are opportunities because they are all options McDonalds can take advantage of in order to expand their company. By doing these, McDonalds will bring in more customers as these changes will attract consumers that are looking for a fast food restaurant that possess these
McDonald’s has proven over time that the business practices they utilize work well and have led them to obtaining the title of the largest food retailer in the world. The founder of the company made a tactical decision in franchising the idea of providing fast food at a cheap price. Today, fast food has become a staple of not only American life but a viable food option all over the world. For McDonald’s a critical factor in them reaching the level of growth they currently experience has been franchising. It can be assured that McDonald’s will continue to grow through the usage of the franchising techniques as new food markets continue to develop all over the world.
McDonalds provide high quality products, such as burgers, fries, drinks, muffins, etc, which are safe and reliable that it does what it is supposed to do, but not only does the quality of the products matter, the good value for money affects the business. E.g. buy one extra value meal and get one free with a food voucher that represents the offer only. They ensure that a high standard of the product is carried out at all times and they try to compete very competitively with other fast food businesses with their good value for money. Also a customer would know if the product is good value for money by checking in another food outlet like KFC for their services and products.
Before it can be gone into detail about how fast food companies are to blame for people over eating their food, it first must be proven that fast food is indeed the main problem causing today's obesity in America. It is known to many people how the number of fast food restaurants in America has increased tremendously over the past several decades, but it is difficult to calculate by how much due to the lack of historic statistics. Also, it is difficult whether or not to categorize certain restaurants as fast food. Although, a good way to get a feel on the growth of the fast food industry is to take a look at McDonald's, which has been America's most popular fast food chain for decades. In 1968 McDonald's open its 1,000th American restaurant. This number has increased to 13,800 restaurants in 2011 (McDonald’s 1), which really shows how much more fast food people are consuming compared to the past. Consider th...