McDonald's Strategy in a Global Market

Introduction

Understanding the organisational environment is mandatory to run the business in such an era of globalisation, where there is intense competition and strong presence of competitive brand san destitute products in the market (Hooton, 2014). The study is effective to conduct SWOT analysis for the organisation McDonald as well as analyse the key drivers affecting the marketing and human resource management strategy.

Organisational background

McDonald is the American fast food company and it is the largest food chain across the globe, where the company is successful to increase their restaurant up to 38000 in the last year. The company is also successful in generating revenue and in the previous year, the revenue was $21.076 billion (McDonalds, 2017a). Total numbers of employees in the company is more than 220000 across the globe, where the employees are efficient to manage their operations and expand the business sustainably (McDonalds, 2017b).

Strong brand image and the brand reputation are the major strength of McDonald as well as the company is also efficient to manage their financial position by generating revenue. The organisation is successful to promote their brand through marketing promotional activities as well as deliver good quality products to the customers. On the other hand, the major weaknesses are such as lack of product diversification, more emphasis on high calorie products, and delay in busy periods and dissatisfied franchisees (McDonalds, 2017b). Though there is some weakness of the company, the food market is expanding and there are many opportunities for the organisation to expand their business. The major opportunities of the company are e-commerce activities, chance of product diversification by introducing vegetarian products, expanding in Asian market, online activities and purchase behaviour of the customers towards the diverse food items (McDonalds, 2014). There are some threats in operating in the market and the threats are such as intense competition in the market due to the presence of other competitive brand such as KFC, Subway, Burger King Etc, which are also efficient to deliver quality food products to the customers. It is important for the organisation to utilise the strengths and mitigate weakness for grabbing the market opportunities and reducing the threats so that the company would be efficient to establish the business and achieve future success (McDonalds, 2017c).

Impacts of drivers on marketing

Marketing promotional activities are necessary for the organisations to sustain in the competition in the global market and secure future sustainable development. In this regard, there are some external drivers of McDonald are such as strong government support and collaboration, international trade agreement, legal compliances and technological advancement which are effective to influence the management team to strategise the marketing technique in the market, so that the organisational products and services can be promoted well (Schilling and Shankar, 2019). In this regard, technological advancement such as social media activities, social campaign and the online website are effective to promote the products of the company. The market technique of McDonald is also strong, where the company aims at social media marketing through utilising the social platform such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter to promote their products and arrange the social media campaign for launching new products (McDonalds, 2017a). On the other hand, the technical advancement also influences the company to restructure their website as well as renovate the mobile application of the company to promote their products and influence the customer’s purchase decision making behaviour (Macmillan, 2012). There are legal drivers such as data protection Act 1998 as well as the cyber security practice which are also effective to develop proper market strategy of the company where the organisation ensures the safety and security of the customers and other colleagues engaged with the business. The other drivers such as food quality management and the environmental practice are also influencing the marketing functions of McDonald (Olson et al., 2018). The food quality association influence the company to maximise the quality of the products so that the values of the customers can be maximised in long run. On the other hand, the environmental protection committee provide suitable guidelines to create green environmental footprint and in this regard McDonald aims at using paper packaging system to reduce the waste and secure natural resources of the earth. Hereby, the external drivers have crucial impacts on the marketing functions of McDonald (McDonalds, 2017c).

Effects of drivers on human resource management

The drivers also influence the human resource management functions and legalise the whole system to hire the employees in the company. The employment rules and legislation as well as employment contract are effective to provide job security to the staff members at McDonald. Additionally, the Equality Act 210 and non-discrimination policies are there to enhance equality and diversity at the workplace so that the employee’s values can be created (Ruddick, 2016). The company’s human resource policy is also influenced by the legal practice and social development activities where the people needs safety and security, self esteem and self actualisation as well as love and belonging at the workplace to perform better (Rothaermel, 2016). The human resource manager at McDonald is influenced by the employment practice to retain the experienced staff and enhance the organisational performance in long run. The company is also efficient to provide monetary incentives. Insurance create and safety to the employees to create values for them and retain them in long run.

Conclusion

McDonald is successful to utilise the external environment and establish the business by using the company’s strengths so that it can gain high competitive advantage and expand the business strategically.

Reference List

Olson, E.M., Slater, S.F., Hult, G.T.M. and Olson, K.M., 2018. The application of human resource management policies within the marketing organization: The impact on business and marketing strategy implementation. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, pp.62-73.

Rothaermel, F.T., 2016. Strategic management: concepts (Vol. 2). McGraw-Hill Education.

Schilling, M.A. and Shankar, R., 2019. Strategic management of technological innovation. London: McGraw-Hill Education.