Business Plan For Fast Food Restaurants

McDonald’s has been in business since 1955. Through many years of great strategic and financial planning, it has become one of the most successful food chains in the world. In order to continue its great success, McDonald’s must continue to adapt to change. In this paper we will discuss the strategic and financial planning that would be necessary to keep McDonald’s on top of the food chain.

McDonald’s has been a staple in the restaurant business for as long as most of us can remember. It has achieve around the globe, but not without overcoming a fair amount of challenges in its pursuit of the title “King of Fast Food”.

McDonald’s is a drive thru restaurant where customers need to wait in line to order as well as pick up their food. This is likely the most dehumanising aspect of the company since they treated people as parts of an assembly line. Moreover, routinization such as maximising managerial control can be found in McDonald’s and it is related to the idea of Taylorism. Where Max Weber used bureaucratic model to describe the movement of the shifting society, George Ritzer believed the operation of fast food restaurants have become a more suitable contemporary paradigm in modern community. Therefore, Ritzer introduced his idea of McDonaldization in 1993 and it comprises four key dimensions: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Among these components, ‘control’ represents workers become standardized and nonhuman technologies would substitute for them. He declared that the principles of fast food restaurant would dominate more and more regions of American society and throughout the world. In fact, apart from food industry, McDonaldization expands all over the world which include bookstores (B.Dalton’s) and toy stores (Toys R Us) (Ritzer, 1993:1).

In the article “The Franchisees Are Not Lovin’ It,” the authors, Gruley and Patton, discuss the difficulties of the McDonalds franchise, the struggles of the franchisees, and the inability to solve these problems. The article goes on to talk about how McDonalds needs to get back to basics, just as they say themselves. Yet, they continue to make the menu more complex by the constant introduction of new foods. They are getting away from their identity as a burger joint. As a result they are closing restaurants and are continuing to experience declining revenue. McDonalds isn’t what they used to be and something needs to be done to improve the well-being of the company, the franchisees, the employees, and most importantly the customers.

As claimed by George Ritzer in his article The McDonaldization of Society, “McDonald’s has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers, and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control” (Ritzer, 12). These four dimensions are the major components of the model of McDonaldization, a term that Ritzer defines as “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world” (Ritzer, 1). The first component, efficiency, is the “optimum method for getting from one point to another” (Ritzer, 12). Efficiency focuses on creating the optimum method where the food is not only quickly prepared, but also quickly consumed. Calculability is the second component of the model of McDonaldization, which places emphasis on the quantity

The student will be able to illustrate their favorite foods by creating them with construction paper.

I, Tayneata M. Starr, decided to discuss McDonald’s for this strategy report. McDonald’s began in the 1940’s as a “mom & pop” bar-b-que diner in San Bernardino, California by Dick and Mac McDonald (“McDonald’s History,” n.d.). In December of 1948, McDonald’s was rebranded as a self-serve drive-in restaurant (“McDonald’s History,” n.d.). The original menu was comprised of nine items, with the staple product being the “15-cent hamburger” (“McDonald’s History,” n.d.). Today, McDonald’s is a publicly traded organization that operates in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada, and Latin America (“MCD Profile,” n.d.). As of December 2015, McDonald’s has 36, 525 restaurants in operation, offering products such as soft drinks, hamburgers,

From Ray developing the strategy of his unique business model, to controlling it through organizational design of franchising to developing unique global strategies for competing on a global scale. This is a wonderful example of having a carefully thought out plan and executing such a plan that has enabled McDonald’s to gain and sustain competitive advantage for the past decades. All the aforementioned strategies have contributed to their rapid growth and high profits placing them at number one for the most successful fast food restaurant and franchisees in the world ahead of its top three competitors: Doctor’s Associates Inc., Yum Brand, Inc. and Burger King Worldwide, Inc. (Hoovers & Business Insider). McDonald’s has been able to differentiate itself as the burger giant serving its signature Big Mac hamburger and as an affordable fast food restaurant despite the emergence of several hamburger restaurants. For these aforementioned strategic decisions, McDonald’s continues to reap the reward of the retail industry and separates itself from its competitors including those who try to substitute its products. What this company has done is truly remarkable. Ray saw a unique business opportunity that had never been previously attempted. Not only did Ray Kroc had a genius idea, but a carefully

McDonald's has been very successful with its global expansion. As of the end of year 2000, there were more restaurants outside the US than in the country of their origin. With comfortable and inviting restaurant atmosphere allows them to enhance their customer conveniences. They have remodelled over 5000 restaurants around the world creating more contemporary environments and strengthening perceptions for both adults and kids. Another reason why McDonald’s is very popular is that they are staying open longer and in some parts they provide 24 hr service, accepting debit and credit cards and enabling wireless connections in restaurants. They are providing more service with delivery and adding double drive thru lanes in restaurants.

McDonald’s Corporation: A strategic approach to global growth McDonald’s Corporation (McDonald’s) is the world’s leading global foodservice retailer with more than 33 500 restaurants serving nearly 68 million people in 119 countries each day (McDonald’s 2012a). In 2011 the company generated USD 27 billion in revenue from its global operations and USD 8.5 billion of operating profit. Headquartered in the United States, McDonald’s Bar-B-Q restaurant was opened in California in 1940 by brothers Richard (Dick) and Maurice (Mac) McDonald as a

McDonald’s has combined Taylor’s, Weber’s, and Fayol’s theories picking out some of the components that best fit their mission. These components include Taylor’s supervision practices, emphasis on efficient specific tasks, and employee placement practices, which represent the mechanistic organization theory. Weber’s hierarchical authority structure, merit based promotion principles, and impersonal management practices. In addition to, Fayol’s bureaucratic management style that stresses planning, organizing and coordinating. Common principles among these three theories like the shared belief in the division of labor, order, and extensive policies are part of McDonald’s management style. In essence, McDonald’s has gathered the components it believed would allow them to accomplish

The founder of McDonald has revolutionized the way world eat. Ray Kroc brought the Henry Ford secret of success of the assembly from the auto industry to the food industry’s kitchen by making product that were uniform, inexperience, and quality manufacturing (Staff). As McDonald continue to grow, owner Ray Kroc continue to improve the process to make the restaurant run more efficiently, but the world has changed. A process that worked in the 1950’s no long hold purpose today and companies will have to make changes for the future or risk being left behind.

McDonald’s is facing various symptoms and problems making them have to decide on a set of appropriate strategies for the future. The symptoms McDonald’s is dealing with are years of profit drains, flat sales, and loss of market share. All these symptoms indicate that McDonald’s might be going in the wrong direction. This assumption can be made when looking at financial statements, changes to profitability, and market share. These symptoms are resulting in major problems making it essential they are addressed.

Internal and external factors have a large impact on the four functions of management within an organization. What these factors are and the kind of impact they have depends on the business and its particular goals. McDonald’s goal is reflected in its mission statement which is to “be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat” (McDonalds, 2009). In order to achieve this goal, McDonald’s executives and managers must follow the four functions of management which are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (Bateman and Snell, 2009). They must also understand how internal and external factors impact these functions. Internal factors that McDonald’s managers need to consider include the amount of food to

Within the next five years of the company, we are putting forth a plan to achieve a catering department. We want to be able to provide the planning and set up of the events that we offer, as well as the food for our clients. Our plan is to lease a kitchen facility big enough to house our staff and store our products while working out of the kitchen. During this five year goal, we plan on opening a second branch in the Chicago Illinois area, while having our branch in Erie, PA still running.