Group project
McDonald’s is a name given to several restaurants operating under the same brand name in the US, which marks the origin of the restaurants. The company started early in the 1950s, making great profits and gaining popularity in providing foods to children, youths, young adults, and adults, including the elderly. It was not until 2001 that the restaurant reached its lowest point in operations, making great losses. Several serious issues affected restaurant operations (Laermer & Simmons, 2004).
External Factors
McDonald’s restaurant produced and sold the same type of foods as other restaurants in the region. This made it impossible for the restaurant to make a profit as before. Wendy and Burger introduced new skills and ideas in the restaurant operations, thus taking some of the customers from McDonald’s. Legislation, on the other hand, had its share on lowering down the activities of the restaurant. Some of the customers took legal action to sue McDonald’s for providing foods that made them gain a lot of weight in few days like one month. This is directly linked to customer’s preference whereby customers preferred specific types of foods that McDonald’s did not produce and sell (Laermer & Simmons, 2004).
Internal Factors
During the low period, McDonald’s had its internal problems that affected smooth functioning. Customers complained of inadequate satisfaction from the restaurant’s services. They observed that foods were of less substantial quality. The general cleanliness of the apartment was below the required standards. These made most of the customers feel insecure to pathogens that cause diseases. They opted to get their food from different restaurants, which fulfilled their satisfaction (Jellison, 2006). There were also several internal wrangles. For instance, shareholders demanded removal of Jack Greenberg as the manager of the restaurant during the restaurants darkest period.
Proposed Changes
Citing the problems that the restaurant was facing the management proposed some new strategies to help correct the situation. The restaurant management decided to use two strategies in this context. The strategies included travel path technology and lower calorie offerings.
McDonald’s travel path aimed at enabling a staff member to walk along after every thirty minutes to ascertain that all programs were running well. The restaurant management proposed a change in amount of calories they provided to their customers. This is because some customers complain of fast gaining of weight that can easily lead to obesity. Some of the foods invented to promote the sales of the restaurant in different parts of US and other parts of the world. For instance, in Japan they make Teriyaki Burger, which is a new idea from Sweden that grills Burgers vertically instead of horizontal in the same way as a traditional griddle (Jellison, 2006).
References
Jellison, J. (2006). Managing the Dynamics of Change. New York: McGraw Hill.
Laermer, R. & Simmons, M. (2004). Punk Marketing. New York: Harper Collins.