CAPSTONE
1. Introduction McDonalds Corporation is a leading food service business and recognized all over the world. It operates in the food industry (John, 2008). The corporation took off with the help of two brothers, dick and Mac McDonald, as a small, fast-food joint in the year 1948. A sales representative named Raymond saw significant opportunities in the market and advised the two brothers to spread out their operations and open more restaurants. Close to nineteen years later, McDonalds had opened more branches outside the United States of America.Mission and vision Mission defines the primary purpose of an organization describing its existence as well as what it does to achieve its vision. It means to set out the picture of the organization's future. A mission statement gives details of what s done and tends to answer the question: “what do we do?” For example, McDonald’s mission is to be the best quick service experience. For them, to be the best, they will have to offer to their customers’ superior services making every customer leave the restaurant smiling.Vision A vision statement simply outlines what the company intends to be. It maneuvers in what it wants the world to be like. It concentrates more in the future than the past. Vision is a source of inspiration, and it provides a clear criterion on decision-making. McDonald’s vision is to be the best quick- service eating place experience. The best could be cleanliness outstanding quality and value to make every customer in the entire restaurants smile.
Stakeholders
In any business, a stakeholder is anyone with interest and effect on its processes and outcomes. Therefore the owners are also stakeholders and can invest else where leading to a driven down value of stock. Customers are the stakeholders of McDonalds because without them the company goes down. The workforce alongside management has a stake in McDonalds and they are crucial and important stakeholders. Stakeholders come in dozens and if all of them were to fit in a list, customers would be at the top of the list because without customers there is no use of all other stakeholders therefore any business. 2. Competition forcesCompetition
McDonalds leading competitors within the quick food industry are continually coming up with strategies that tend to put them top by getting more customers and market share. Many firms in the industry are jockeying for greener pastures and better position in the market using strategies that are offensive. As a result, other firms including McDonalds have to take defensive measures to guard against the offensive strategies. Substitute products
McDonalds gets pressure from other firms because they come up with more substitute products aimed for competition. Substitute products in the quick food industry are a big plus and customers always prefer them. Since fast foods are not always the best when it comes to health, selling substitute products becomes a big advantage.
New entrants
New potential suppliers with more bargaining and competitive power are a threat to McDonalds. As a result, suppliers remain neutral since they are multiple suppliers for the same products. Having many physical locations is a good way to overcome this competitive force.
New menu items
The more a company has many menu items the more the customers it has. McDonalds has made sure it incorporates many new items in the menu, which attract more customers. These items could come with cheaper prices or more prices depending on their nutrient and content value. Incorporating more healthy food in the menu puts McDonalds in the leading edge and it has become a favorable choice to many who prefer more items to choose.
Fast service
The fast service look and face of a restaurant is a competitive force by itself since many people prefer quick foods to save time and money. There are people who hardly get free time to go for lunch and fast service becomes the ideal choice for them. McDonalds is the leading fast service outlet in the industry and it is growing each new day as it penetrates too many countries in the world.
3. SWOT Analysis
- Strategic moves
Many competitors present in the fast food industry have gone far ahead beyond their traditional ways of getting revenues from the fast food outlets. To remain in the competitive end, McDonalds has come up with some strategies like creating more awareness to the customers, more product familiarity and even opening more stores depending on the culture.
McDonalds has the best strategies of all time and it is evident on the cash register and annual returns. McDonalds has ensured that its employees are familiar with their products and there easy to explain to customers. The restaurant has deadlines to certain sales because it knows that many people meet deadlines and this happens when they have certain foods on offer.
- Communication plan
While implementing the above-stipulated strategic objectives in its daily operations, McDonalds has a systematic leadership approach/plan, giving it the ability to understand problems and issues meant for study as well as its stakeholders. It should also be in a position to understand measures of establishment concerning performance. There is the use of analytical and scientific tools when communicating to stakeholders and when developing solutions that are efficient and effective to problems at hand.
There is need for human resources and marketing finance incorporation to communication and operations to all organizations regardless of nature and the performed activities. MacDonald should use the conversion process in its communication plan for the basic communication and function and they should be mutually interactive. (Taylor, 2001)
Operations should come at the central part of MacDonald’s activities and this will help in binding all its functional areas together. An efficient operation’s system is what should determine efficiency and productivity in McDonalds. Operations therefore form a very important workflow process. Operational strategies come after corporate level strategies and the translation is systematic. Functions of operation management include development and product design, layout of facilities and location, design of process, planning of capacity, control and production planning, forecasting, supply chain management, management of maintenance as well as improvement continuity in operations. An operation transforms input to useful outputs making sure that there is value added to certain entities. This is the primary activity to not only McDonalds but to all organizations. It is central to professional people’s activities and organizations. Below is a diagram showing the systematic transformation operations. (Pine, 1993)
7. McDonald’s governance mechanisms McDonalds suffer from political threats coming from wars between the countries it operates in moreover, governments. On top of legislation, it has forced them to provide health warnings on their product. The reasoning behind why McDonald has turned out to be the focus of attacks and terrorism groups is that they have become a symbol of capitalism and Americanism. The political factors are beyond their control, and this led to more suffering. The only way they could turn away from the crisis is through leaving the war-stricken countries. Leaving would mean closing down some outlets and, therefore, loss in revenue (John, 2008). Lately, economical problems too are heartwarming McDonald. From its fast food business, McDonald has established a recent fall in sales. The drop in sales is a suggestion that customers want more freedom of choice than the current offer. This is difficult to get from McDonald since it does not support that. This has resulted to buying other companies such as Prêt a manger with the aim of increasing revenues by offering more varieties to customers as they demand. (John, 2008)McDonald has over the years, refined its managing and process of its stores making it more efficient as it possibly can. This has advantage over the competition whereby they can produce more effectively and efficiently than other small companies hence still the number one. Through the introduction of healthy and a wider variety of alternatives, McDonald has tried to diversify the company. However, the attempts seemed not to have taken off.8. Effectiveness of leadership
The function of a leader in leadership involves working closely with those in management to ensure that the company is going to the right direction. It also involves looking and examining at the trends and data to ensure it remains competitive. Effective leadership involves management since managing people is all about understanding individuals’ weaknesses and strengths within a working team. Management and leadership of people only depend on the role assigned within an organization.
Styles in leadership include how the leaders relate to those who are around them. In addition, how they receive information and come up with conclusions. Some examples will best compare and contrast the styles in leadership. Two of these dramatically displayed styles are those of Commander Jones colonel who became popular because of assaulting a trench and as a result, he was killed. The other style is that of major john who lead an assault successfully on Colonel Jones. Both characters have opposite approaches on their leadership styles. There is the autocratic style of leadership and leaser faire.
McDonalds should however adopt a decision tree in its leadership. A decision tree is a flow chart that is tree like and it lists out each possible decision outcome. It helps in choosing between many action courses. They consist of big, small circles, rectangles and arrows. For example, each rectangle representing a decision can lead many outcomes. Each outcome requires more decisions, which lead to more
- Efforts
The code of ethics that governs McDonalds Corporation is exceptionally clear. They fully committed to it, and they have staff whose work is to check and make sure it followed to the letter and complied. Many issues that the restaurant heads audit against, periodically by both internal and external mechanism spell out because of this code of ethics. The code is a form of promise that promises to conform to standards of business behavior. Integrity and keeping off potential conflicts that maybe in private or public nature are among the things the code promises to maintain. This makes sure that McDonalds is transparent on its course action that they use to resolve any action. By so doing they work towards convincing relationship with the stakeholders. McDonalds have the ethical conscientiousness of declaring the returns to the shareholders on the economic gains. These returns strictly observe, punctual, accuracy, transparent and require depth. For example, the promises the code gives are; to uphold the regulations of the United States and the non United States businesses, to act with transparent facts, without malice, and with reasonable care that will not be affected by any pressure coming from third parties. Business freedom demonstrated to the second party auditors that are independent is what the corporation cherishes. Unless dully authorized, the code of ethics brings the employees tight together to maintain the corporation’s confidentiality, which is vital. Another promise is ensuring all employees have exceptional quality communication flow and regularly to update the stakeholders on any financial matter that comes up in the business. It adheres to everything it says and follows it to the letter.
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