The McDonald's Corportation

The McDonald's Corportation

The late 1940s would forever revolutionize the way the world eats out. In 1948, the McDonald brothers sold their first hamburger at their fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, California. No one at the time had any idea that McDonald's would become a restaurant chain loved by people around the world. McDonald's is now the largest and best-known fast-food retailer in the market.

There are more than 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries on five continents, some of which are operated by the company, and some by franchisees. The restaurant chain plans to expand their leadership position in the fast food market through convenience, superior value and excellent operations. In 2004, the company implemented their "Plan to Win" campaign that has provided the McDonald's system the focus it needs to become the customers' favorite place and way to eat. According to CEO Jim Skinner, the plan concentrates on the "five key drivers of the fast food business: people, product, place, price and promotion." McDonald's dream is to dominate the worldwide foodservice industry, which means setting the performance standard for customer satisfaction and quality. McDonald's Corporation is dedicated to the selling of hamburgers, a common job especially in the U.S. To survive in the communal market McDonald's delivers quality, service, cleanliness and value. This chain has succeeded in the past and become so well known because of its consistency in delivering a customer experience that has value far beyond good food at a great price. Ray Kroc started the corporation training people on how to be kind, fast, precise and effective, and today McDonald's still operates under the same perspective, and it has been an absolute pioneer in the field.

Being a business that serves millions of clients every day, finding a source for cheap, quality equipment is a necessity for success. To settle this issue, McDonald's distributors are placed in strategic locations in respect to each restaurant and carry practically everything, from meat and potatoes to light bulbs, which let each restaurant maintain an efficient supply chain. McDonald's is increasingly using its global influence seek to benefit from global purchasing practices. New restaurants throughout Europe feature locally made goods such as: tabletops from Belgium, chairs, floors and tiles from Italy, doors from Austria etc. all using low-cost, high quality suppliers. Without the freedom that franchisees and suppliers have in the McDonald's architecture to exercise their local and personal instincts, to test their own ideas on new products and procedures, McDonald's would have never achieved the goals is has today. Where other companies would spend millions of dollars researching local customs and preferred eating trends, McDonald's is able to obtain the extremely valuable information by just listening to their employees. 80% of McDonald's restaurant businesses world-wide are owned and operated by franchisees. Each McDonald's restaurant runs on the standard regulations specified by the McDonald's headquarters: approximately 3,000 employees provide a wide variety of support functions to the 25,000 McDonald's restaurants through a network of divisional, regional and local-country offices. The chief technique to manage and ensure every McDonalds is operating to the code set forth by the main offices of the restaurant is done in many ways, the most effective being the way personnel travel to each location to make individual inspection on quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

To stay at the top of the market, McDonald's invents many aspects that other fast-food retailers have to imitate to stay in the competition. A good example would be the McDonald's PlayPlace. When the directed audience was solely children, McDonald's came up with the brilliant idea of attaching a place where parents with children cannot only eat a decent supper but also be as loud and be as wild as they wanted. So they teamed with the Walt Disney company and created an attachment to each restaurant that includes a ball pit and a set of climbable tubes. Another example of McDonald's innovation is Hamburger University. There are 11 such mentoring facilities in the world that train the future managers of McDonalds in the basics of McDonald's operations. A place like no other. Now that the target audience has expanded to the general consumer, the company has implemented different strategies to appeal to them. The "Made for you" food preparation structure allows each restaurant to serve hotter, fresher food to silence the minds of people who fear getting a stale burger. Everything is