How Would You Describe Mcdonald's Business Strategy?

About everyone at some age, at some point or another, and in some country has gotten a sample of American's symbol for fast food through the golden arches of McDonald's. This report will attempt to analyze the external and internal sectors that affect the company's success. The external analysis will provide opportunities and threats while the internal analysis will show indicators of strength and weakness. It will then follow up with critical issues, strategic alternatives, recommendations and implementation. The case studied is found in Appendix 2 of Mary Coulter's "Strategic Management in Action" book.

McDonalds is one of the biggest fast food companies in the market share today. It has been running in over 119 countries, as well as they have acquired over 31,000 restaurants in the world now. McDonald’s brand mission is to be customers’ favourite place and way to eat, they are aligned around a global strategy called the ‘Plan to Win’, they also committed to continuously improving their operations and enhancing their customers’ experience. As we all know that McDonald’s had successfully achieved their goal through out the years. (aboutmcdonald’s, 2012) Apart from this, as McDonald’s is a worldwide company, they also had the social responsibility to return the community; therefore, the ‘Ronald McDonald House Charities’ was

Step 1: The business strategy goals are to capitalize on specialty products and offer products for all incomes. The business strategy is a collaboration of the broad differentiation strategy and focused market niche strategy. The broad differentiation strategy concentrates on “seeking to differentiate the company 's product offering from rivals ' in ways that will appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers.” The focused market niche strategy principles are differentiation and concentrating on a narrow buyer segment that may outcompete rivals by offering niche members customized attributes that meet their tastes and requirements better than rivals ' products” (Thompson, Gamble, & Strickland, 2006, p. 114).

REFERENCES•www.mcdonalds.com, accessed on 18 July, 2008•www.mcdonldsindia.net, accessed on 18 July, 2008•en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's, accessed on 19 July, 2008•http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/263943/mcdonalds_strategic_marketing_mix.html?cat=4, accessed on 19 July, 2008•www.kfc.com, accessed on 25 August, 2008

A competitive strategy, or business-level strategy, is the way a business used to successfully enter and penetrate into a market (Eastwood et al, 2006), and also, to succeed in this chosen market against its competitors (Johnson et al, 2014). A company needs to develop and apply appropriate strategy to help the company to generate distinctive competences (David, 2007). Compared with the strategies implemented in other levels of operation, competitive strategy is more focused on the competition against other competitors and strategic choices to better attain market share (Harrison and St. John, 2009). According to

This process helps a firm or organisation in focusing its marketing effort towards a specific segment or a group of segments. Depending on the product, organisational goals, the size of the firm and the marketing resources available a firm may target only one ‘niche’ segment or alternatively focus on several related segments. Another method can be to start with one segment and add more when business grows successfully. Large companies often target all market segments and try to serve them by offering a large variety of products to suit all their needs, wants and demands.

In this assignment I am going to evaluate the concepts and principles applied to the marketing of products by McDonalds and make recommendations.

McDonaldization as a management logic has spread further than the fast food industry from which it originated. Choose a case study and discuss.

While playing the BSG I found the best strategy was the best-cost provider strategy. Using the best-cost strategy allowed me to continue using a decent amount of superior material while also offering prices that were below or around the same price as my competitors. My shoes where not the highest quality or most expensive, but it was also made with a small amount of superior material so it was also not the cheapest made shoe available. This strategy worked best because it attracted buyers who wanted a good quality shoe but did not want to pay high quality prices. Since there were so many companies offering the same product, offering a medium-quality product at a lower price helped my company to gain more customers and market share. A focused differentiation strategy worked least well. Concentrating on one niche results in a company missing out on potential customers. Competitors working outside of the niche will eventually find ways to match the firm’s capabilities in serving the target niche. If the wants and needs of the target market start to switch over time, entry into the focused market can become easier for competitors as people look for different products and services.

There are also some risks for each strategy. Upholding cost leadership can be risky because of the requirement of frequent capital investment to sustain cost advantage, then cost surges narrow price differentials and diminish ability to compete with other’s brand royalty. Differentiation strategy has some threats, such as imitation decreases alleged differentiation, buyers need for differentiation falls. Meanwhile, the risks for focus or niche strategy are the differences in preferred products or services between the strategic market and target as a whole narrows, the cost discrepancy between wide ranged competitors and the focused firms broadens to eradicate the cost advantages of allocating a narrow target or to offset the

“Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitor’s” (Porter 1980:47). A successful business plan requires first and foremost the formation of an appropriate strategy. Through the implementation of a suitable strategy, the company is able to obtain its own industry niche and gain an understanding of its customers (Porter 1985). Whichever strategy is adopted it must be adequately integrated within the firms goals and missions to achieve a competitive advantage (Parker and Helms 1992).

The company researched for the purpose of this paper is McDonald 's. This company 's history dates back since 1940 when Mac and Dick McDonald initially opened McDonald 's BBQ restaurant located in San Bernardino, CA. In 1948 they shut down the restaurant, just to reopen it as a self-service drive-in restaurant. According to About McDonald’s (2012), their menu included only 9 items, such as: milk, coffee, soft drinks, cheeseburger, hamburger, potato chips, and a slice of pie. Potato chips were then replaced by French fries. The history of this company is significantly market by Ray Kroc, who in 1954 at a visit to McDonald 's in San Bernardino decides to have a franchise of McDonald 's. A year later, in 1955, he opens his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. The franchising plan allowed growth and by 1965 there were more than 700 restaurants across United States. McDonald 's

Throughout its restaurants across the globe, McDonald's Corporation consists of various operations that are associated with the overall strategy of the company. Some of

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.

"i 'm lovin ' it is a key part of McDonald 's business strategy to connect with customers in highly relevant, culturally significant ways around the world."