Contemporary Management Issues in the 21st Century

This report discusses the strategies and theories adopted by McDonald's for effective management of its operations. It covers the Four Building Block Strategy, Human Resource Theory, Role and Impact of Artificial Intelligence, and Management of Workforce in McDonald's. The report also includes subject, course code, and university details.

Contemporary
Management Issues in
the 21st Century
Student ID: S207025
BA in Business Studies (Foundation Year)
University of Suffolk
Date of Submission: 03/10/2022
I declare that this assignment is all my own work and that I have acknowledged all
materials used form the published or unpublished works of other people. All references
have been duly cited.

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BODY .............................................................................................................................................1
Four Building Block Strategy .....................................................................................................1
Human Resource Theory ............................................................................................................2
Role and Impact of Artificial Intelligence ..................................................................................3
Management of Workforce in McDonald's ................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Businesses and its operations are certainly surrounded by uncertainties, the reason of these
uncertainties can lie within the external as well as in the internal factors. The key reason for a
business in achieving success is its business model along with the way they presentation of their
ides and work ethic. As mentioned work ethic is also of vital importance, businesses focuses
considerable amount of resources for sustaining the work ethics among the employees. There
exist several ways by which the company can enhance the culture of the workplace which will
ultimately help them in creating the ideal image in the market place (Craneand et.al, 2019)
Above all the implementation of the strategies cost something, without even a doubt
management is the factors which determines all the above mentioned elements. With evolving
time and technology businesses have also evolved themselves in accordance with the external
environment, this change has considerably bought difficulties for the businesses in many forms
which will be mentioned in the report.
BODY
All the mentioned theories and procedures are in accordance with the operations of McDonald's
Four Building Block Strategy
The elements which forms the structure of the strategy are of vital importance as, irrespective of
the business model and their nature, the elements are the only basis of their formulated strategies.
McDonald's which is one of the global player in the fast food industry has significantly
overcome the issues which have come along the way and have helped the business growing.
The four elements which forms the basis of this strategy involves :
1. Conceding: Its a way by which the company manages in saving time against their
competitors, this helps McDonald's in analysing the internal factors of the company
which will support the company in coping up with the external environment.
2. Confronting : Well while being in the same industry different companies have different
vision and missions which they all thrive to achieve. Confronting helps businesses in
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ignoring the situations by effectively analysing the macro environment. This helps the
companies in saving funds along with helps the employees on being focused.
3. Competing: This situation usually arise among businesses who have the same targeted
audience and delivered same kind of products which causes considerable tension among
the brands (Mogaji, 2021). For effectively competing with a well established brand it is
essential for the company to develop strategic which triggers the weaknesses of the rival
organisations and helps them in defending the opponent.
4. Cooperating: This element helps the business in brining all its factors together and
formulate a way in which they all can be combined in formulating a strategy which will
help in getting close to its target.
This theory helps McDonald's in developing strategies which will help the businesses in
analysing the factors which has attracted tension and opposition for the company and come up
with ways to cope up with. Each and every step is taken before analysing the repercussions
which will occur. If the repercussions are drastic and will put the company in damage its most
likely the company will not adapt such options.
Human Resource Theory
The strategies adopted by the mangers of an organisation fro the implication of policies within
the organisation are generally referred as human resource theories. Presently there exists four
human resource theories which involves;
1. Organisational Lifecycle Theory : This theory revolves around the life cycle of
the products and the ways in which the
external factors can affects the operations of an
organisation, as it one of the oldest HR Theory.
(Borgesand et.al, 2021). It has been adopted by
McDonald's for analysing the factors which
can affect the operations of the company along
with the ways in which the company can
ensure that the profit of the company intact.
2. Strategic Contingency Theory: This theory helps an organisation in coming up
with strategies, which helps them in coping up
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with different issues. The decisions in an
organisation are majorly dependent on the
capabilities of an individual.
This strategy has not been adopted by
McDonald's as being a global company the
decisions cannot rely on a individuals
intelligence and needs to be well coordinated
and discussed, as these decisions will affect
the companies interest.
3. General Systems Theory: Its one of the widely used and implemented
HRM theory which interconnected the related
factors and helps with the management of the
organisation. The parts of the theory has been
adopted by McDonald's as they help
understanding the occurrence of events and in
what ways they are interconnected.
4. Transactions Cost Theory: The ultimate goal of an organisation is to
deduct the unnecessary cost along with the
risks which are the consequences of such
additional cost. One of such cost is the
transactional cost which appears when the
company is dealing with any external factor.
This theory has helped the company in
reducing its transactional cost along with the
associated risks.
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Role and Impact of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence along with machine learning has impeccably brought the drift in the
society, the procedures have become much smoother and efficient, the impact these
technological modifications have bought in the society while helping the businesses flourish is
highly appreciated. These technologies have changed the overall perspective of humanity over
society, and the industrial revolution we experienced. Artificial Intelligence has helped global
businesses with their humongous data (Akerkar, 2019). McDonald's is one of the company that
has been benefited, the impact they have created include; the creating of employment in new
sectors and fields, as it has been analysed that 75 millions jobs will not exist in the coming future
but the AI itself is going to generate 133 million job opportunities. As being a global company
McDonald's also welcomes such revolutions. The tools that have been developed by the AI
software is bridging the language barriers which in many ways connecting the globe, and
brought much better resources. Even the public administration sector of various nations have
adopted the AI transformations which has made the job easy for companies like McDonald's as
they are required to go through a lot of paper work, which now can be done digitally.
The role of AI in McDonald's included the reduction in the processing time, as it is known that
AI has influence upon the supply chain and the product life cycle(Munokoand Vasarhelyi,
2020) .The primary goal of the software lies in brining the needed speed which helps the
company in reducing its process time. With the help of AI the company is able to expand with its
full potential. As AI has reduced the time that was earlier required in the decision making along
with that, the software allows the company in making the right decision through the strategic
figures.
Management of Workforce in McDonald's
With the expanding business operations, it becomes tough for any organisation including
McDonald's to manage their workforce. For the effective management of the employees the
company has adapted a management strategy known as Reflexis . This management strategy is
an user friendly as well as easily adaptable in the existing processes, it has already eliminates
many manual process, which has promoted to management in devoting more time to its
customers and stakeholders. Much accurate and factual business studies and budgets are being
generated which has helped the company in responding within time to the external factors. More
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precisely the strategy has helped the business in improving its efficiency in many ways which
includes: now mangers are not required to create employee schedule, the company is able to
increase its sales on hourly basis and is efficiently able to project it (Agrawal,and
Goldfarb,2019). This strategy has significantly helped the company in increasing its profits
by .81% at it pilot restaurants. In many way even with the new project and programme
management technologies the company has been able to support and effective mange its work
force, As the company hires the right talent which best suits the vision of the company, as the
people have the required skills and experience the company is only required to develop the
feeling of ownership among its employees and that could be effectively done when the company
will be assigning respective projects to respective teams. McDonald's have a well-qualified team
of experienced project mangers which are responsible for the management of their team s and
bring the desired results in the company which the company expects from its employees.
CONCLUSION
This report focused on providing the overview of the operations that the McDonald's carries
through. The ways on which the strategies are formulated was mentioned, the key elements on
which the company formulate its strategies included: Conceding, Confronting, Competing and
Cooperating. These factors helps the company in predicting the future and face the opposition
that the company will get from its competitors end. Followed by the Human Resource Theories
implemented by the company for the effective implication of its policies along with the
implication of the code of conduct, the HR strategies mentioned in the report includes:
Organisational Lifecycle Theory, Strategic Contingency Theory, General Systems Theory,
Transactions Cost Theory. Followed by the roles and impact of the AI in the business
operations.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Crane, A., and et.al, 2019. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in
the age of globalization. Oxford University Press, USA.
Mogaji, E., 2021. Contemporary issues in brand management. In Brand Management (pp. 241-
255). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Borges, A.F., and et.al, 2021. The strategic use of artificial intelligence in the digital era:
Systematic literature review and future research directions. International Journal of
Information Management, 57, p.102225.
Akerkar, R., 2019. Artificial intelligence for business. Springer.
Munoko, I., Brown-Liburd, H.L. and Vasarhelyi, M., 2020. The ethical implications of using
artificial intelligence in auditing. Journal of Business Ethics, 167(2), pp.209-234.
Agrawal, A., Gans, J. and Goldfarb, A. eds., 2019. The economics of artificial intelligence: an
agenda. University of Chicago Press.
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