Origin and History

Ray Kroc was the founder of McDonald's Corporation.

Back in 1954, as a 52-year-old salesman, Ray Kroc was an exclusive distributor for "Multimixer" milkshake machines when he came across the small hamburger stand of Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. He took one look at the rapidly moving line of customers buying bags of hamburgers and French fries and thought, "This will go anyplace. Anyplace!"

After the McDonald brothers explained that they didn't have the personal desire to oversee the expansion of their concept across the nation, Ray Kroc became their exclusive franchising agent for the entire country. A great salesman had discovered his ultimate product. Kroc formed the new franchising company on March 2, 1955 under the name of McDonald's System, Inc. This was the start of McDonald's, as we know it today.

By the mid-1950s, their little hamburger factory enjoyed annual revenues of $350,000

almost double the volume of their previous drive-in business at the same location. It was

not unusual for 150 customers to crowd around the tiny hamburger stand during peak

periods. Word of their success spread quickly, and a cover article on their operations in AmericanRestaurant Magazine in 1952 prompted as many as 300 inquiries a month from around the country. Their first franchisee was Neil Fox, and the brothers decided that his drive-in in Phoenix, Arizona would be the prototype for the chain they envisioned. The

resulting red-and-white tile building with a slanting roof and the Golden Arches on the

sides became the model for the first wave of McDonalds restaurants to hit the country and an enduring symbol of the industry.In 1961 Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers. By 1967 McDonalds expanded its operations to countries outside the U.S.A. This unyielding expansion led the Corporation to open 23,000 McDonald's restaurants in 110 countries in 1994, producing $3.4 bn in annual revenues. Similarly, McDonald's serves about 1% of the world's population on any given day through its 23,000 restaurants internationally. Big Mac, the world's most sold hamburger was developed by Jim Delligutti in 1967 to feed construction workers. 'Big Mac' is the biggest attraction and backbone of the corporation. By 1960, there were more than 200 McDonald's outlets across the country, a rapid expansion fueled by low franchising fees. Ray Kroc had created one of the most compelling brands of all time. But he was barely turning a profit. Ultimately, it was his decision to use real estate as a financial lever that made McDonald's a viable operation. In 1956, Kroc set up the Franchise Realty Corporation, buying up tracts of land and acting as a landlord to eager franchisees. With this step, McDonald's began to generate real income, and the company took off. Kroc then introduced national advertising programs to support the rapidly proliferating franchises, and when it appeared that growth in the company's home territory was slowing in the early 1970s, he started an energetic and successful push to make McDonald's a global presence. Throughout the company's spectacular growth, Kroc maintained a delicate balancing act, imposing rigorous system-wide standards while encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit that welcomed ideas from all levels. Many of these ideas contributed to the company's astonishing success.

Instead of simply supplying franchisees with milk-shake formula and ice cream, Kroc wanted to sell his new partners an operating system. In other words, he branded a service. And this was the revolutionary means McDonald's would use to create a chain in which a store in Delaware and a store in Nevada could serve burgers of the exact same size and quality, each containing the same number of pickle slices and topped with the same-size dollops of mustard and ketchup, each arrayed on similar tray alongside potatoes deep-fried for the exact same length of time. As Kroc recalled, "Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald's. Everything else was secondary for me." But the exacting demands served a strategic goal. "Our aim, of course, was to insure repeat business based on the system's reputation rather than on the quality of a single store or operator," Kroc said.

McDonald's has come a long way ever since its beginning in 1955. Here are a few milestones of the McDonald's journey ...

1955Ray Kroc opens his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois and the McDonald's Corporation is created.

1957Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value (QSC& V) becomes the company motto.

1959The 100th McDonald's opens in Chicago.

1961Hamburger University opens in Elk Grove, near Chicago.

1963One billion hamburgers sold. Ronald McDonald makes his debut.

1964Filet-O-Fish sandwich is introduced.

1965McDonald's Corporation goes public.

1967The first restaurants outside of the USA open in Canada and Puerto Rico.

1968The Big Mac is introduced. The 1,000th restaurant opens in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1972A new McDonald's restaurant opens every day. The Quarter Pounder is introduced.

1973Egg McMuffin is introduced.

1974The first Ronald McDonald House opens in Philadelphia. The Happy Meal is launched.

1983Chicken McNuggets is introduced.New Hamburger University campus opens in Oak Brook, Illinois. Set in 80 wooded acres. Training is provided for every level of McDonald's management worldwide.

198450 billionth hamburger sold. Ronald McDonald Children's Charities is founded in Ray Krocs memory to raise funds in support of child welfare.

1989McDonald's is listed on the Frankfurt, Munich, Paris and Tokyo stock exchanges.

1990McDonald's opens in Pushkin Square and Gorky Street, Moscow.

1993The first McDonald's at sea opens aboard the Silja Europa, the world's largest ferry sailing between Stockholm and Helsinki.

1994Restaurants open in Bahrain, Bulgaria, Egypt, Kuwait, Latvia, Oman, New Caledonia, Trinidad and United Arab Emirates, bringing the total to over 15,000 in 79 countries on 6 continents.

1996McDonald's opens in India the 95th country.

McDonald's - A Global Phenomenon

While McDonalds was astounding the experts with the rapid growth of its hamburger

chain in the United States, our company had another big surprise brewing international

expansion.

They opened their first restaurant outside the U.S. in Canada on June 1, 1967 in Richmond and the race was on. Canada today has more than 1,300 restaurants.

One of the most dramatic examples came in Japan, where Den Fujita, who owned an import company specializing in handbags, shoes, and apparel, became McDonalds joint venture partner in 1971. Fujita opened his first restaurant on July 20, 1971 in a tiny 500-square-foot restaurant in a prime location in Tokyos Ginza shopping district a site that only allowed 39 hours for construction that normally took three months. On its first day, the restaurant rang up $3,000 in sales, and Fujita has never looked back.

They also opened our first restaurants in Germany and Australia in 1971. Today, Germany has more than 1,200 restaurants and Australia has some 700 McDonalds locations.

After entering France and England in the early 1970s, McDonalds today runs some 980 restaurants in France and more than 1,200 restaurants in the United Kingdom.

These six countries Canada, Japan, Germany, Australia, France and England are

known as McDonalds Big Six because combined, they provide about 80 percent of

international operating income. McDonalds international operations are playing an

increasingly important role in our companys results. In 1995, for example, 7,030

restaurants in 89 countries produced sales of $14 billion. After a few false starts in the Caribbean and the Netherlands where they tried a more

hands-off style and attempted to compromise their menu for local tastes their realized thatwhat had worked so well in the U.S. could travel virtually anywhere. A strong local

partner, fully trained and totally involved in the business...the traditional McDonalds

menu...and our detailed operating procedures for QSC&V were the formula for success.

McDonald's operates over 30,000 restaurants worldwide, employing more than 1.5 million people.It operates in more than 100 countries on six continents.McDonald's opened its doors in India in October 1996. There are 56 McDonald's restaurants in India employing around 2,000 Indians. Ever since then, our family restaurants in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Noida Faridabad, Doraha, Manesar and Gurgaon have proceeded to demonstrate, much to the delight of all our customers, what the McDonald's experience is all about.

McDonalds in India is a 50-50 joint venturepartnership between McDonalds Corporation [USA] and two Indian businessmen. Amit Jatias company Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt. Ltd. owns and operates McDonald's restaurants in Western India. While Connaught Plaza Restaurants Pvt. Ltd headed by Vikram Bakshi owns and operates the Northern operations.Amit Jatia and Vikram Bakshi are like-minded visionaries who share McDonald's complete commitment to Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value (QSC&V). Having signed their joint-venture agreements with McDonald's in April 1995, they trained extensively, along with their Indian management team, in McDonald's restaurants in Indonesia and the U.S.A. before opening the first McDonalds restaurant in India.

DynamicsRespect for local culture McDonald's India has developed a special menu with vegetarian selections to suit Indian tastes and preferences. McDonald's does not offer any beef or pork items in India. Only the freshest chicken, fish and vegetable products find their way into our Indian restaurants.In addition, they have re-formulated some of their products using spices favoured by Indians. Among these are McVeggie burger, McAloo Tikki burger, Veg. Pizza McPuff and Chicken McGrill burger. They also created eggless sandwich sauces for vegetarian customers. All our vegetarian products are 100% vegetarian. Even their mayonnaise was specially developed for Indian consumers and hence does not contain any egg. Additionally, the soft serves too do not contain any egg and they take great efforts to ensure that our vegetarian products are kept distinctly from our non-vegetarian products right from our suppliers end till they are served to our customers.

Over the years McDonalds has adapted itself to the country requirements and culture and offered what is exactly needed by the respective country. For eg: McDonalds doesnt serve water along with the food anywhere ,but realizing the fact that Indians are too used to the availability of water in all dining places they do serve water on demand. Likewise in places like Italy they serve wine an so on thus crafting their policies according to the respective country.

Although McDonald's always insisted on planting its rigid operating system in foreign soil, when it came to other aspects of the restaurants' operation, the company was more flexible. For example, to make the chain's name more easily pronounceable for Japanese consumers, it was changed to Makudonaldo, and its mascot became Donald MacDonald. Hamburger Central also allowed local operators to devise unique promotional campaigns. "Our name may be American, but we're all Irish," ran one promotional campaign for outlets in Dublin.

Today, even the menus at McDonald's restaurants in foreign locations clearly reflect differences that do not exist at the company's American outlets. While the stores offer fare like hamburgers, french fries and milk shakes, there have been some additions: for example, when McDonald's restaurants opened in Germany in the early 1970s, they started serving beer; in the Philippines they offer McSpaghetti noodles, while Norwegian franchises offer a salmon fillet sandwich, the MacLak.

International standardsMcDonald's India's local suppliers provide us with the highest quality, freshest ingredients. Complete adherence to the Indian Government regulations on food, health and hygiene is ensured, while maintaining our own recognized international standards. Fast, friendly service - the hallmark of McDonald's restaurants the world over is the mantra they abide by. Stringent cleaning standards ensure that all tables, chairs, highchairs and trays are sanitised several times each hour. Such meticulous attention to cleanliness extends beyond the lobby and kitchen to even the pavement and immediate areas outside the restaurant.

Serving our customers great tasting, high quality food is our top priority. All menu items at McDonald's are prepared for our customers under a carefully monitored process using specialised equipment.For example, they conduct a series of tests and restaurant audits every day to ensure that the procedures are being followed and our high standards are being met.They train their crew members extensively on all food safety and food handling processes. Trainees work shoulder-to-shoulder with crew trainers while they learn the operational skills necessary for running each of the 25 positions in our restaurant from front counter to the grill area.

Strict procedures are followed not only at the restaurant level but also at the supplier end. All suppliers adhere to Indian government regulations on food, health and hygiene while continuously maintaining McDonald's recognised standards. As the ingredients move from farms to processing plants to the restaurant, McDonald's Quality Inspection Programme (QIP) carries out quality checks at over 20 different points in the Cold Chain system. Setting up of the Cold Chain has also enabled us to cut down on operational wastage.

Training

At McDonald's training never stops. Training policies are based on the philosophy of our founder Ray Kroc who believed that, If you take care of your people the business takes care of itself.Training is a combination of on-floor and classroom training provided through our Learning and Development Team with exposure to the various aspects of the business.Crewmembers are trained extensively on all food safety and food handling processes. Our trainees work shoulder-to-shoulder with crew trainers while they learn the operational skills necessary for running the restaurant from the front counter to the grill area.

Yesterday, Nelson Mandela and BMW. Today, Destiny's Child and McDonalds... From PR Newswire - In Oct 2004McDonald's announced a multi-dimensional global partnership with R&B super group Destiny's Child. The trio of Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams will play an integral role in the McDonald's worldwide brand campaign - "i'm lovin' it" - bringing a new, exciting energy and attitude to McDonald's ongoing approach of connecting with customers in fresh, relevant ways. "We're lovin' the chance to work with McDonald's and know that together we'll create lots of fun and cool surprises," said Beyonce Knowles, founding member of Destiny's Child. "McDonald's shares our passion for music, so we can't wait to start connecting to our fans - McDonald's customers - all over the world."

For smaller enterprises, what can be learnt from McDonalds? They sold you three products with one transaction. They have delivered convenience to the customer and among other things they have created a satisfying brand experience.

From a logistics point of view they have simplified their ordering and planning process, enabling them to keep costs down. The 'Meal Deal' reduces transaction and logistics costs and strengthens the brand franchise - attributes worth adopting in most businesses.

Competitive Analysis

Who are the real competitors of McDonalds? Burger King and Wendy's of course, but what about Pizza Hut, Arby's, Dairy Queen, Subway? Other hamburger places are direct competitors and other types of foods could be considered secondary competitors.

Burger King

Burger King is one of Mcdonalds major competitors. Burger King is the #2 fast food chain. Which famous item such as the whopper and whopper junior. It has over 11,000 resturants in every US state and 60 countries. They sell over 1.7 billion burgers a year

-The former CEO of northwest airlines is now the CEO of Burger King

Wendys Wendy's another McDonald's competitors. Wendy's is the #3 fast food chain. Which is famous for it founders Dave Thomas. Who can be seen on almost every Wendy's commercials in about 700 ads over a ten year period. There are about 6,000 restaurants worldwide.Wendy's is famous for its frosty and .99 cent value items

Burger King, McDonalds and Wendys--now openly attack one another and make explicit comparisons of competing products.

1984 example of "Where's the Beef" campaign of Wendys--attacked other hamburger chains as having much smaller hamburgers.One-way to boost one's own sales was not just through positive appeals to own product, but negative attacks on other brands.

Subway

In the year 2004, the SUBWAY chain entered its 39th year of operation. It is the worlds largest submarine sandwich chain with more than 21,000 restaurants in 75 countries. As a matter of fact, the SUBWAY chain operates more units in the US and Canada than McDonalds does.

Hardees

Hardee's another of Mcdonalds competitors in the fast food industry. Hardee's is famous for its star burger. There are 29,000 restaurants in 34 states in the us and 11 countries.

McDonald's has two types of competitors in the Lebanese market: .Indirect and Direct Indirect Competitors:

Indirect competitors : refers to firms producing one or two products that compete with McDonald's products and therefore be a threat to the company. We have identified four indirect competitors: Henry J. Beans, T.G.I. Friday, K. F. C. and Popeye's

Henry J. Beans offers hamburgers and fries on its menu, therefore competing with McDonalds for customers of these products. However, Henry J. Beans also known as Hank's is a more of a bar restaurant and therefore a hang out place, as a result charging more money for its products. Hank's targets middle to upper class customers, so where most of these customers overlap are in the middle class. T.G.I Friday is another indirect competitor reflecting the same characteristics as Henry J. Beans. Other indirect competitors are K. F. C. and Popeye's, both competing for the chicken nuggets and fries customers. In brief, Hank's and T.G.I. Friday's competes with McDonald's by offering hamburgers and fries, whereas K. F. C. and Popeye's compete with McDonald's by offering chicken nuggets and fries.

Direct Competitors: Direct competitors refers to firms producing the same products or services as McDonald's does. Here we found that McDonald's has three direct competitors: Burger King, Wendy's and Hardee's as discussed above.

Customer Analysis

A want is a desire for a specific product or service to satisfy the underlying need. Consider this example:

Consumers need to eat when they are hungry.What they want to eat and in what kind of environment will vary enormously. For some, eating at McDonalds satisfies the need to meet hunger. For others a microwaved ready-meal meets the need. Some consumers are never satisfied unless their food comes served with a bottle of fine Chardonnay.Consumer wants are shaped by social and cultural forces, the media and marketing activities of businesses.

This leads onto another important concept - that of customer demand.

Thus analyzing customers needs and proper segmentation and targeting is very important

Customers are those who pay money to acquire an organization's goods or services. For many years McDonald's mostly targeted the young people, however this has changed in this decade; McDonald's has turned towards a more general market. By doing this McDonald's concentrates on the family, targeting a diverse market which includes consumers ranging from children to elderly people, using products such as the "happy Meal" for children and "Egg McMuffin" for the elderly. McDonald's also realized the changing world we live in and the need for healthier food, since there is an ever changing demographic group, who demand fast, top quality food that is low in calories. McDonald's responded to this opportunity and introduced a new and innovative product. This new product was a regular hamburger that tasted like the real thing but was made of plant material like Soya beans. This same product also targets another demographic group, vegetarians. McDonald's mostly uses psychographic segmentation targeting the working and middle classes. These are the people that are more susceptible to enter a fast food restaurant, since these are the people that lead a fast moving life and thus require a fast meal. They manage the business based on geographic segments: United States; Europe; Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (APMEA); Latin America and Canada. In addition, throughout this report we present a segment entitled "Other" that includes non-McDonald's brands. The U.S. and Europe segments account for approximately 70% of total revenues. In brief McDonald's customers are of all classes, but largely working and middle classes, and people of all ages.

You will see McDonald's ads targeting children, senior citizens, parents with small children, single people and so forth. No one advertisement will appeal to everyone. If you need to reach a number of audiences, design different advertisements for each of those audiences.

One possible way to reach a wide audience is to create ads that have different messages. For example, McDonalds has Ronald McDonald and Happy Meals for the kids, but also tells adults that they "Deserve a break today." This strategy allows the consumer not only to treat the kids but also to give him or herself a well-deserved reward too. Interestingly, happy meals and toys not only juice up the kids to buy McDonalds products, but also they may entice older people to bring in their grandchildren. McDonalds are classing their chicken salads, veggie burgers, yoghurts and lite muffins as their range of healthier foods.Targeting the peckish travellers

MCDONALDS, the fast food chain that has become synonymous with urban living, is all set to break boundaries and go national.It is doing this through the arteries of the country the national highways and expressways.

Peckish travellers zipping from city to city, will no longer have to be content with dhabas offering dal-roti. They can look forward to biting into burgers, french fries, McPuffs et all. For hungry drivers on the run, the company promises to deliver within 60 seconds after an order is placed. Theoreticaly, one can be back on the highway in just two minutes. Of course, the practical reality is that placing the order itself could take a little bit more than the said two minutes. McDonalds is projecting an income of 15 to 20 per cent from drive-through business on expressways in the immediate future. This is expected to grow to 40 per cent in the next five years.Drive through restaurants are only one of the options to meet McDonalds target of 80 restaurants across India by 2003 with an investment of Rs 850 crore. Internationally, 40 per cent of the companys business is from express highways.

The targeted marketing approach is especially important to the restaurant industry since knowledge of the customer is very low in most cases. Customer interface plans have been put into place with use of more electronic kiosks, data capture and payment systems that allow the consumer to do-it-themselves.

McDonalds has launched kiosks for order entry. They have put credit card swipes in front of their customers at the drive-thru and at the Sonic Drive-in spots. The movement has been hot for about three years with early movers in all of these consumer facing areas, stated Barry Spangler, a consultant on retail systems.

Customers in the spotlight

McDonalds has tailor made its menus according to the requirements of the customers. In India there no beef products available. Similarly it has introduced Aloo-tikki burgers and pizza mc puffs keeping in mind the taste of customers.

Business Objects has become the single source of information for McDonald's in the UK. Restaurant managers can now quickly get the information they need and spend more time on the floor with staff and customers, helping McDonald's to retain its position as the world's best quick service restaurant.Quality and consistency of product and service have underpinned the success of the McDonald's restaurant chain since its inception. To achieve this consistency, the company sets many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), both quantitative and qualitative, to which its restaurants aim to comply.

McDonald's is using business intelligence from Business Objects (an initiative known internally as SEER), to provide rapid access to this information to enable proactive management and improved business understanding which will thereby help in serving customers better.

Furthermore, by providing restaurants with a fast and easy to use system, the company's Accounts department has reduced the time spent during the month-end process by 500 man-hours each month. In addition, area restaurant managers now spend less time collecting information and more time concentrating on customer service.Targeted management has underpinned significant improvements in customer contacts. McDonald's has a goal of no more than two complaints per restaurant per month. Using Business Objects to highlight problems early, such as staffing levels, some 500 stores have achieved zero complaints for more than two consecutive months.

This focus on service is enhanced by information from the three "Mystery Shopper" visits to each restaurant monthly. This qualitative information, reported via Business Objects, includes, amongst other criteria, whether or not there was a friendly greeting, whether the server was wearing a name badge, as well as the overall cleanliness of the restaurant. McDonald's vision for the future is to be the world's best fast-food service company. The goal is to serve hot food quickly to every customer every time.

It is important to be particularly adept at recognizing opportunities of value for which customers are willing to pay. For example, Sunny Fresh, a division of Cargill Inc., developed the egg for the McDonalds Egg Mcmuffin sandwich by paying acute attention to the customers needs.Cargill sells the pasturized, food safe egg patty to them fresh. This reduces laborious tasks; no more cracking eggs open at McDonalds every morning! Also, it minimizes possible food born illness in the egg sandwich. McDonalds values process optimization, and food safety improvements. Cargill was rewarded for their customer -focused solution with sole supplier arrangement within the United States. This arrangement is mutually beneficial.

Strengths

Philosophy

We take the burger business more seriously than anyone else." When McDonald's founder, Ray Kroc made that memorable statement, he was letting the world in on the philosophy and secret behind McDonald's phenomenal success.

Our vision to be Indias "best" quick service restaurant experience is supported by a set of principles and core values

The principles that guides McDonalds

Quality, Service, Cleanliness & Value - It is an unflinching McDonald's ideology that our customers must always get quality products, served quickly and with a smile, in a clean and pleasant environment; and all at a fair price

We are committed to exceeding our customers' expectations in every restaurant every time.

We have a passion and a responsibility for enhancing and protecting the McDonald's brand.

We believe in a collaborative management approach, employing a mutually respectful business philosophy.McDonalds People Promise.

We're not just a hamburger company serving people; we're a people company serving hamburgersFor McDonald's to achieve our goal of being the world's best quick service restaurant experience, we must have the best experience for all McDonald's employees. So we formalized our beliefs into our People Vision and our People Promise.

Our People Promise is how we remind our people what they can expect and how high our goal is: To be the the best employer in each community around the world.

McDonalds Corporate Responsibility

At McDonalds, responsibility means striving to do what is right, being a good neighbor in the community, and integrating social and environmental priorities into our restaurants and our relationships with suppliers and business partners. It also means communicating about our efforts to address social and environment issues that matter to our customers.

Corporate responsibility is part of our heritage, dating back to our founder Ray Kroc. It is also an integral part of our business strategy. Our customers trust is a precious asset and one we strive to preserve and build every day. We know we must have that trust to achieve our vision of being our customers favorite place and way to eat.

McDonalds Diversity

McDonald's is the world's community restaurant. We are proud of our long-standing commitment to a workforce that is diverse. We believe in developing and maintaining a diverse workforce that will strengthen the McDonald's system. Diversity at McDonald's is understanding, recognizing and valuing the differences that make each person unique.

McDonald's is committed to recognizing the talents and job performance of all employees and values the contributions that come from people with different backgrounds and perspectives.McDonald's has been recognized for its many contributions in the following areas:

Top 25 Companies for People with Disabilities

Best Employer for Asians

Top 50 Places for Hispanic Women to Work

Fortune Magazine - Top Places for Minorities to Work

Working Mother Magazine - Top 10 Diversity Champions

Hispanic Magazine - Top 50 Corporate Women in America

McDonalds Balanced active lifestyle initiatives

McDonalds cares about the well-being issues that are so important to many of our customers. With our balanced, active lifestyles initiatives, we are offering a variety of high-quality menu options, promoting physical activity, and providing information and education to help our customers around the world make smart choices for themselves and their families.

Mission And Vision

"We serve people with good quality food, fast and at low cost." McDonald's vision is to dominate the global food-service industry. Global dominance means setting the performance standard for customer satisfaction and increases market share and profitability through successfully implementing our convenience, value and execution strategies. THESIS STATEMENT: To have a clear picture of McDonald's corporation we need to look at its Task Environment, which includes its: Customers ,Competitors Strategic Allies ,Suppliers ,Regulators.We shall also explore McDonald's Workforce Diversity and its Total Quality Management.

Strategic alliances

McDonald's has formed a strategic alliance with: Walmart, Chevron, Amoco, Disney and Coca-Cola. Walmart, which is a large shopping mall chain in the U..S. and several neighboring countries, is allied with McDonald's, which offers great opportunities for both companies. McDonald's has restaurants in each Walmart, offering its customers conveniences and excellent fast food at a low cost ease of accessibility. McDonald's corporation describes it best in this scenario: "Imagine a busy shopping day at your local Walmart and having the ability to sit down with the kids and enjoy many of our McDonald's favorites, like 'Big Mac' sandwiches, world famous fries and kids favorite 'Happy Meal'. McDonald's understands your busy lifestyles and the demands on your time. That's why we are making it easier for you to do more things in less time."

McDonald's is engaged in an alliance with two petrol companies, Chevron and Amoco. This alliance represents the ultimate in convenience. At these locations, one finds a full-menu McDonald's restaurant with dining room service. Nothing can be more convenient, because one can fill up the car with gas and get a meal all in one stop. Another important alliance that McDonald's has is with Disney.

Top Quality Management

Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. For McDonald's, total quality management (TQM) involves that the employees are at work on time, are neatly dressed, and are clean. The employees must make sure that the customers constantly receive safe food, which implies that the employees must wash their hands often to remain clean. Moreover, the employees must follow certain Standard Operational Procedures, so the customers always receive exceptional quality and service. This includes the employees using plastic gloves when they prepare the food, that the meat and fries are properly fried, and that the vegetables are thoroughly washed when used in the food. Another TQM is that the employees rely on teamwork and high energy to get the job done, so that the customers do not have to wait long for their food. Furthermore, McDonald's management emphasizes that their restaurants should be clean.

Areas Where Weaknesses can be transformed into strengths

Here are a few points which can be looked into :

McDonald's recently tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce us to adult foods with their Arch Deluxe sandwich line. Trying to move away from what and who you are is never a good idea. In the US, recently, McDonalds was sued by some overweight teenagers because they 'didn't realize that eating every meal at McDonalds might make them fat.' Their argument was that McDonald's only talks about how it's a fun family place, they never said their food was lethal for the average heart. Thus It should look into the matter of making more health free items. According to Claire Babrowski, chief operating officer at McDonald's, a common complaint among McDonald's customers is that the food doesn't taste as good as it used to. Further research revealed that customers just want food served hotter. The company is now making hotter, fresher food served faster its central focus. Instead of coming up with new products, such as the failed Arch Deluxe, or new ingredients, McDonald's now markets "Made for You." This means freshly toasted buns, moist meat, and no mustard if the Customer does not want it. Sounds simple, right? Well this is a tremendous change from the lined-up, precooked burgers of McDonald's past.

In October 2002 there was more controversy about the oil it was cooking french fries in (McD's had for years said it was vegetable, but had to disclose it was animal after all); declining customer satisfaction scores; disgruntled franchisees; befuddle stockholders; and that's not even the half of it. Though it's still one of the most recognized brands in the world, unfortunately what it's recognized for is not exactly good. When it comes to a marketing strategy, McDonald's sorely needs to look at the targeting decision. For far too long, it has focused primarily on super heavy users and also followed an occasion-based segmentation(i.e., one segment goes for a meal for themselves, one goes as a special treat, one goes because the kids begged to go). But virtually everyone in the category focuses on super heavy users and, as we've seen time and time again, super heavy users are often price-conscious, deal-prone, and consequently disloyal to the brands they buy. And occasion-based segments are not mutually exclusiveone person goes because of the kids on Tuesday but after a hard day on Thursday goes for a special treat on the way home from workso it offers little in the way of concrete guidance on whom the most profitable customers are and how to motivate them to buy. Senior management has to recognize that ignorance is not bliss; there is a serious service problem at the restaurants that can't be covered up with a coat of paint or new uniforms. Superficially addressing the problem isn't going to help perceptions of taste and quality if service remains poor and the restaurantin particular the restroomsremain cluttered and dirty. Customers won't be fooled and they'll wonder why McDonald's just doesn't get it. Mandating some basics like clean restrooms needs to happen immediately and McDonald's can use information about its most profitable target to build a service organization around meeting the needs of these customers most efficiently.

As a restaurant industry analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston recently said, McDonald's has "always looked for the easy answers, never making the hard choices." But if it wants to restore the grandeur of the Golden Arches, McDonald's needs to make the hard choice to stop speculating on its future with copy-cat tactics and invest the time and money in fixing what is clearly broken.

Brand Identification

Brand Identification is not reserved for Fortune 500 companies. Regardless of the size of your company, build in brand identification. That identification begins with a consistent font, a consistent "look and feel" to your ads. You want customers to remember the name of your company and recognize the image anywhere. For branding to work, the identifying marks (logos, product pictures, name, individual products, etc) of the brand or product line (or Realtor) AND what the product (or Realtor) stands for need to be driven home simultaneously through frequency and clarity to the consumer.

Just as national brands use a consistent image for brand recognition like McDonalds golden arches you can use a consistent look to fix your business's image in potential customers' minds. The sign on your truck, your Yellow Pages ads, brochures, handouts and other advertising should uniformly represent your business. you are likely to make many of the following associations with the brands identity system : Big M logo,Ronald Big Mac, Mc named menu items, Red and Yellow...

The way I describe a strong brand identity is when a 2 year old son says 'MucDonulds Daddyas they are driving along

He has seen the large yellow M and relates it to McDonalds. Through their advertising they have communicated the pushed the yellow M so my son will remember it.As the home page of Mcdonalds appears we immediately understand that we are in the italian McDonald's web site because the whole page(like every page of this web site) is completely based on the Mcdonald's logo and on the colors of the brand: Red and YellowA big yellow M is crossed by two horizontal bars which subdivide the space into some navigation (the navigators) and thematic areas(the teasers in home page and the title of the sections in the inner pages).We immediately understand that the sender is the chain of McDonald's fast food restaurants because of the presence of the logo(the yellow M) dominating the center of the page and occupying the canonical position (up to the left).

Graphics is lively, thanks to the presence of very emotional colours, the red and the yellow of the brand that are higlighted by a dark blue background and the choice of images that are fresh and happy. Furthermore the web site faithfully follows the typical style of the american restaurants company so that it is very improbable that the ones who love McDonald's world do not feel at ease in this enviroment.

No communicative Metaphor has been used. The choice of the colors, the notoriety and the predominance of the product would have made the the use of any metaphor superfluous.

McDonald's - "Lincoln Fry" The two commercials about a guy who finds fame because he found a McDonald's French fry that looked like the head of Abraham Lincoln were created to generate Web site traffic, as I understand it. Early reports suggest that this tactic worked, but I still dont get it.There was no appetite appeal. The brand identification was not particularly strong. I could not figure out how or why these commercials would encourage me to eat at McDonald's.Ronald Mcdonald

Apart from its logo another important brand identifier for McDonalds is Ronald Mcdonald. In the US, after Santa Claus, Ronald McDonald of McDonalds is a ritual. There is a tremendous craze for him among kids and youngsters.Ronald McDonald House Charaties

The Ronald McDonald House Charaties helps children and their families to comfortable wile the children are challenged with medical ordeals and helps provide grants for children in need. The RMHC is affiliated with over 174 local charaties in 32 countries.

Ronald McDonald house provides a home away from home. The first house was built in Philadelphia in 1974. Fred and Fran Hill's daughter was undergoing treatment for leukemia . The family grew tired of eating vending food and sleeping in hosptial bedsFred, who was a player for the Philadelphia. Fred was a player with the Philadelphia Eagles and got his teammates and manager to support him anlog with Dr. Audrey Evans from The Children's Hospital fo Philadelphia and a local McDonald's franchise to build the first Ronald McDonald House. Now there are 206 houses in 19 countries.

Ronald McDonald & friendsRonald McDonald has many friends.As far as can be remembered Ronald makes friends every where he goes. Ronald has kept the same friends over a number of years. No matter how old a person everyone has a favorite character in McDonald land whether it be The Hamburgler of the Fry Guys.These names are remembered by the young and old. McDonald land was a place to go where you would always have a friend.

Tie-Ins: Partnerships between companies to cross market each others' products. Thus, McDisney refers to the fact that McDonalds and Disney have an ongoing agreement where all Disney films automatically create toys that are given out with kids' meals at McDonalds, and the association between the two companies and their products is thus established. Kids think McDonalds and Disney in one breath which is an add on to the identification of the brand.

The Golden Arches are said to be more widely recognized than a Christian cross. All thanks to Ronald McDonald.

McDonald's represents capitalistic imperialism at its best, pushing hamburglars and cheeseburglars into countries where people used to value things like kosher products, low-fat foods and vegetarianism. And the xenophobic clown won't be stopped.

From the product branding of the Big Mac, Happy Meal, the Quarter Pounder and more, to the corporate branding of the Golden Arches and a cheerful, caring Ronald McDonald, the corporation has fashioned a brand that means "food, folks, and fun" -- a total brand strategy that supports every aspect of corporate identity.

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