Assignment: Final Paper (Phase 3 of Final Project) (750 words)

Introduction

McDonald’s Corporation is a US fast-food company founded by Maurice McDonald and Richard in 1940 in San Bernardino, California (Rothaermel & Arthaud-Day, n.d). McDonald’s currently has it headquarter in Chicago, Illinois US. It is the world’s fast-food company with a total of 39,198 restaurants globally in 2020. McDonald’s is the largest restaurant chain globally by sale, serving more than 69M customers every day in more than 110 countries across 39,198 outlets as of 2020.

The company is best known for hamburgers, French fries, and cheeseburgers. However, its product portfolio also incorporates chicken products, soft drinks, wraps, desserts, milkshakes, and breakfast items. The company also offers salads, fruits, and smoothies due to the growing concern for healthy eating. The main competitors of McDonald’s are KFC, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, and Starbucks. of McDonald’s are KFC, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and Starbucks.

McDonald’s Corporation Mission

McDonald's mission is "to be our customers' favorite place and way to eat and drink" (https://www.mcdonalds.com.my/company/mission-vision). The mission statement emphasizes the importance of customers as a business focus and entails two components; "customers' favorite place to eat and customers; a favorite way to drink." McDonald's considers customers' preferences as the primary determinant of its business to attain its mission. For example, it develops and just its menu according to customers' preferences. McDonald's also develops its restaurants' layouts and designs to optimize customer experience and productivity to achieve its mission and goals.

McDonald’s Corporation Goals

The company's goals are to serve good food to its customers in a fun and friendly environment, provide reasonable returns for its shareholders, and be a socially responsible organization. McDonald's management also aims to give the target audience food and drinks of high standards that offer value for their money and quick services. The focus of being a favorite place for customers and maximizing their satisfaction.

McDonald’s Corporation Strategies and Information System

McDonald's currently uses various Information systems and strategies to accomplish its set mission and goals. The primary method that McDonald's uses are the "Plan to Win Strategy." This global strategy consists of the five Ps; Promotion, Place, Product, Price, and People (Bindhu, 2017). McDonald's uses this strategy to attain its mission of "to be our customers' favorite place and way to eat and drink" and various goals. The system generally focuses on creating an extraordinary customer experience and improving operations within the company.

The Plan to Win strategy helps the company achieve the bottom-line objectives of more and satisfied customers, more often, more profit, and more brand loyalty. For the past years, this strategy has served as a vital framework behind McDonald's growth. This strategy has contributed to McDonald's annual profit and sales growth, growing customer base, increasing customer loyalty, and brand image.

One of the information systems used by McDonald's is the "Made for You" system. This information system serves as a communication portal between the kitchen staff and the counter. When the customer places an order at the counter, it appears on the kitchen screen in respective workstations like fries or chicken. McDonald's use this system to increase productivity and customer satisfaction by offering quality and fresh products.

The second information system utilized in McDonald's is the Point of Sale system. It is a system that records and processes a transaction between the company and customers at the point where products are purchased. POS system functions by combining both hardware and software. In McDonald's, the POS system is attached with computerized cash registers, which can read and process electronic cards. The system is designed to limit the clogging up of complex data. It is mainly used to maximize customer satisfaction and experience by increasing order processing time and reducing error possibilities (Rajawat et al., 2020). POS helps in conveying information to appropriate workstations within the company instantaneously. It also shows the time duration after an order is made, allowing the kitchen staff to identify waiting and unserved customers.

McDonald's also recognizes that to attain its mission and goals, it has to keep its suppliers. It uses a transaction processing system to keep track of its suppliers. It records essential information about suppliers, the type of product or supplies, the address, the name, and the quantity (Beynon-Davies, 2019). TPS fastens the ordering process and reduces the complexities related to physical contact.

McDonald's also uses voice recognition technology to help accomplish its mission and goals. It is a hardware device or a software program that is capable of decoding the human voice. The system allows diners to place their orders without interacting with the McDonald's staff. The voiceprints extracted by this technology helps in identifying customers' unique qualities like volume or pitch. The voice recognition technology increases customer service by easing the order placing process.

Due to the increasing move to digitization, McDonald's uses AWS cloud computing platform to build scalable and secure digital platforms (https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/mcdonalds/). AWS includes a mixture of infrastructures like PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS. AWS helps McDonald's to personalize customer experiences and effectively handle online retail operations.

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