Before presenting a detailed evaluation of McDonald’s strategic management perspective, it is necessary to define the leading actors in this situation. Exploring employee’s culture, understanding clients’ needs and concerns, attracting new investors and suppliers, and establishing fruitful relations with environmental organizations should be a priority for the restaurant network.
At the current moment, the company faces the challenge of creating a new concept and logo of the fast food industry that should focus on health conscious consumers.
A new shift in production and service are predetermined by the increasing popularity of environmental concerns with the ecological situation and the threat of genetically modified products. Therefore, the products should restructure their product orientation to sustain long-term competition.
While considering the level of interest and power among the potential stakeholders, specific attention should be given to employees, clients, and suppliers because they have a potent impact on McDonald’s profitability and performance.
To begin with, the Matrix of interest and power demonstrates that employees have a high level of power but their interest is low, which implies that the company fails to provide a rich organizational culture and develop strong corporate responsibilities. Introducing strong morale and ethics will definitely have a positive effect on employees’ awareness and commitment to organizational goals.
While developing efficient employed setting, the managers should take closer attention to a culturally diverse environment and create a strong ethical framework for employees to motivate their performance. Hence, different regions should rely on the geographic and national peculiarities to respect employees’ background.
Apart from individualistic approach, the company should work out a universal philosophy that would be tolerant to all employees irrespective of their race, nationality, and gender. Thus, there should be a balance between respect for tradition and overall humanistic approach to managing human resources.
While considering consumer needs and concerns, it is necessary to introduce differentiation strategies for consumers who can take part in developing the new menu for the restaurants with regard to their cultural, national, and ethnic backgrounds. This is the case when global expansion strategies should be introduced for evaluating the local peculiarities and adopting them into a new framework.
For instance, acting in Asian region, company’s managers should focus on the local specialties that are in high demand among consumers. The employees should also be familiar with their customs and establish trustful and respectful relations with their clients. Focusing on hospitality and communication based on high-context culture.
Specifically, this type of culture relies on “nonverbal and subtle situational messages when communicating with others” (Kreitner 97). Therefore, the main task of McDonalds is to inform and train their employees to be able to meet a specific cultural environment.
High context cultures are also identified with the representative of collectivist culture, which means that clients from such countries as Egypt, Japan, and India have a strong commitment to their families, friends, and relatives. Therefore, they tend to share common goals and objectives.
In contrast to low-context and individualistic cultures, the restaurant managers should be deeply concerned with person-oriented approach to meet the clients’ needs.
The representatives of low-context culture include predominantly European and Western countries. Overall, an in-depth assessment of cultural, economic, and ethnic backgrounds is essential because it enhances McDonald’s competitive advantage and improves their philosophy and vision.
Apart from cultural consideration, developing a new concept of food consumption is another issue that McDonald should change to meet environmental and health concerns. Consumers should alter their attitude to McDonald’s in terms of stereotyping its products as “junk food”.
In this respect, the company’s marketing personnel should develop a new advertising campaign that can present a completely different philosophy to convince the consumers that fast food can be healthy. Such a vision is unique and, therefore, it provides McDonald’s with a considerable competitive advantage.
Hence, other fast food networks will need some time to work out another efficient strategy for expanding their market segments. Such a strategy should be consistent with quality and price dimensions that should also attract consumers. Certainly, because the product is natural and healthy, the price for quality should be higher.
The shifts in the concept of food offered to consumers should be congruent with product differentiation strategy, which implies the development of a health menu for health conscious consumers. These menus must include the information about the ingredients, calories that a separate product contains. In such a way, consumers can be more confident about the product they consume.
To develop a new concept, searching for new suppliers will be a new challenge. Under these circumstances, it is possible to follow the example of Nestle company, a multinational producer, that has managed to meet the requirements of health conscious population and create new jobs in agricultural sector (Haksoz et al 200). This is of particular concern to supply of milk in the Indian regions in which the products are distributed.
Besides, the delivery terms were simplified because the company did not need to supply milk from distant regions anymore (Haksoz et al. 200). Besides, the agricultural sector in Panjab that had previously been in recession has experienced the second revival. As a result, the economic situation has also been improved significantly (Haksoz et al. 200).
Based on this example, McDonald’s restaurant networks can also adjust to geographic and climatic conditions of various regions and establish contacts with local suppliers of food products, including milk, meet, and other products. For instance, while operating in China, it is possible to produce dishes containing rice whereas Japanese McDonalds can deal with sea products.
In Islamic countries, McDonald’s chain can take into consideration the food preferences in terms of religion traditions. Such products as ham and pork are prohibited among Muslims and, therefore, the managers should develop a new culturally oriented product to meet the dietary restrictions.
Establishing and searching for new suppliers of products and equipment is an important strategy because it allows the managers to protect the company from potential losses of the resources. Additionally, developing brand loyalty and improving public relations is another beneficial strategy that can contribute to the competitiveness of the fast food chain.
The development and expansion of retail stores at hospitals, airports, and other public place turned out to be successful and, therefore, this approach to expansion should be implemented in future while entering new economic spaces. Due to the fact that the bargaining power of suppliers is relatively stable, the possibility to substitute distributors will not be problematic.
It also contributes to a long-term competitive advantage and sustainable development of restaurant network. Additionally, developing and expanding supply chain will enhance the industry’s global influence because lack of resources can immediately be replaced by other producers from the local regions.
The above-proposed marketing strategies should be congruent with international and domestic policies that can enhance attitude and quality of the organizational process. Taking control of technological development is also indispensible to meet the globalization process and innovation.
Advancing equipment and developing electronic menus will definitely improve the quality of services. Therefore, taking advantage of the local capabilities and integrating advanced technology can provide wider opportunities for enhancing the company’s competitiveness.
McDonald’s global orientation will be beneficial as soon as external environment is considered properly. In fact, estimating and predicting the competition strategies of its rivals is as important as recognizing the importance of internal processes optimization.
Broader sense of competition should be acknowledged to ensure McDonald’s successful operation. At this point, the matter of time is important during rush hours. So, locating restaurants should be based on the possibility to deliver quickly prepared meal at a moderate price that could be taken with clients.
Finally, McDonald should provide a new ideological framework in terms of authenticity of ideas. For instance, it is possible to organize restaurants in rural areas and present specialized menu based on the products from countryside
. This idea will produce shifts in perceiving McDonald’s as an urban network of restaurant. In general, all the proposed strategies cover all external and internal factors consistently to sustain a competitive advantage in five years (from 2013 to 2018) of business activities.
Ensuring the quality of operations and introducing new ethical and moral frameworks can strengthen the global position of the fast food industry. Thinking locally, but acting globally is the basic principle of successful business management. Addressing the change immediately is another approach to gain a competitive advantage.
Works Cited
Haksoz Cargi, Seshadri Sridhar, and Ananth V. Iyer. Managing Supply Chains on the Silk Road: Strategy, Performance, and Risk. US: CRC Press, 2012. Print.
Kreitner, Robert. Principles of Management. US: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.