McDonalds Strategies

Introduction

            Accordingly McDonald’s is practically known in the global market as one of the popular fast food chain. With its multiple operations in different parts of the world, the company was able to attain market growth and profit. However, having operations in different countries have post different challenges to their business strategy.  To be able to carry out an efficient approach, McDonalds must learn and analyze different aspects of the nations. With this, the company will have the ability to execute business strategies which would provide the best business outcome. The main goal of this paper is to analyze the strategies used by McDonalds in their international operations.

 Overview of the Company

            McDonalds is considered as one of the largest and competitive fast food industry in the global market. The company is now having operations, franchises and service in the global marketing of over 30,000 fast food chains which prepare, package and sell different menus of instant and ready to eat meals. McDonalds has its branches in various countries from the United States, Asia, Europe, Australia and others (McDonald’s Corporation, 1).  The company provides variety of meals including fried chicken, hamburgers, and others.

 Analysis of the Global Strategy

            As a global company, McDonald’s corporation has been well-known to be a highly flexible company. The management of the company has been proven to effectively use differentiation strategy, which they also used in their international operations (Howard, 5). In order to gain good reputation in different countries, the company has been able to adapt unique strategy for each host country (Arnold, 2003). This is done to meet the specific needs of the target market in each nation.

For instance, the company has been able to consider Teriyaki burgers to meet the needs of the Japanese people in teriyaki burgers. In Indonesia, the company has provides the McPork Burgers and McTempeh and among the people in the Philippines, the company has made their McSpaghettis and McLox Salmon sandwiches in Norway region. These are some of the concrete proof on the strategy of McDonald‘s in terms of modification based on its international preferences and tastes which they also do in markets like UK, Dubai, Hong Kong and others/ .

            Aside from the differentiation approach, the company has also been able to use efficient advertising and promotions as part of the international business approach. One of these strategies is the promotional offers of the company for different items like concert tickets, compact disc, caps and internet cards, T-Shirts and others.

 In addition, the company has also been able to use global strategy of promoting through its collaboration with other multinational companies like Sony, General Motors, MTV and Coca-Cola. Furthermore, the company also conducts programs for children from different nations.            In addition, the company is also using national rollout of its “made for you” platform as the agenda to re-evaluate the company’s core brand attributes.

Conclusion

Based on the analysis, it shows that McDonalds are using different marketing strategy depending on the country they are operating. Herein, the company uses international strategy for each country but also consider uniformity in terms of providing healthy and nutritional meals.

Reference

Arnold, David Strategies for Entering and Developing International Markets. In Mirage of Global Markets, The: How Globalizing Companies Can Succeed as Markets Localize. Financial Time Prentice Hall, 2003.

Howard, T. The Over-Arching Strategy-McDonald’s Global Brand Strategy Task Force. Brandweek, November 8, 1999.

 McDonald’s Corporation, About Mcdonalds. Online available at http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about.html. Retrieve March 14, 2009.