E-Business Application at McDonalds Retail Store

This study evaluates the need for retail stores to have an effective online presence, with a focus on McDonalds. It discusses the current operation of McDonalds, the importance of e-business application, and provides recommendations for the future.

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E-BUSINESS APPLICATION AT MCDONALDS RETAIL STORE
Student’s Name
Code + Course Name
Professor’s Name
University Name
City, State
September 22, 2018

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Table of Contents
I. Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
II. Current Operation.................................................................................................................3
III. Discussion.............................................................................................................................4
IV. Recommendation..................................................................................................................7
V. Conclusion............................................................................................................................8
References....................................................................................................................................9
Appendices................................................................................................................................11

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I. Introduction
Marketers and brands’ managers embrace the concept of ideation to produce quality
products and services to potential consumers. This initiative is also complemented by selecting
an appropriate physical location for the company. However, in addition to bricks and mortar,
there is need to establishing an online presence due to rapid changes of technology in the retail
business. To reach more customers who have access to devices like: smartphones, laptops and
iPads, the company needs to take advantage of new and innovative technology by creating
mobile applications. Online shopping provides a different experience to customers because
products and services can be ordered from the comfort of one’s home using a smart device. In
that case, McDonalds Company invests heavily in e-business to reach more clients and to meet
their demands. With an increased competition rate in the retail sector, managers need to attract
more customers to their physical stores using mobile apps in order to maintain and increase sales.
II. Current Operation
The McDonalds Company is known for fast food delivery all over the world. The
company started operating in the 1960s and is currently service customers through 30,000
different restaurants. Using its unique service provision that is more centered to the brand’s
culture, the company engages in organized modern artifacts like: McDonalds’ famous products,
aid organization and dispersion in classified advertisements. Approximately 75% of the company
is operated and owned by local entrepreneurs and serves more than 40 million customers per day.
Its globalization in different companies enables the company to get 82% of sales from 8 different
countries which includes: Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, France and USA; making up
approximately 40% same store sales growth by March 2017 (see appendix B). The biggest
operational management achievement that the company got in globalization is the creation of

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quality products to gain a reputable brand image from potential customers (Rodrigues, Nikhil
and Jacob, 2016). Moreover, the company implements hygiene cautions which are a driving
force that helps the company to draw the attention of many customers. McDonalds has
formulated a commercial symbol and saturate form of advertisements that assists marketers to
advertise effectively by creating a good logo and brand name.
McDonalds Company has invested time and funds to form a technology board that helps
the company to research and implement new technologies that upgrade its operation as time
goes. A fundamental objective of this board is to recommend to McDonalds’ board of directors
to purchase sophisticated equipment that will be productive and save energy. In 2001, the
company started investing funds in its ordering system to improve sales and linking of sales
system through its back office. This step has assisted the company to analyze the inside state of
the e-business and generate 5 times of its income from 2007 to 2017 (see appendix A).
According to Rice (2007), managers and retailers are able to determine what customers prefer by
giving them an opportunity to review their products and services. A review helps managers to
know that products to eliminate from the market and what needs to be re-invented. All this effort
is more centered to determine how the brand will get more clients to stay healthy in the fast food
sector. In that case, the company offers a platform of suggestion from customers to help the
company to know how it will invest its capital in improving the electronic purchasing system and
how to make transactions less time-consuming.
III. Discussion
With the bricks and mortar aspect being fulfilled by the McDonalds, this study holds a
significant evaluation of the need to stores to have an effective online presence. This new
initiative is effective for McDonalds to stretch its marketing parameters. According to Ha and

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Park (2013), using technology to build social networks for retail stores can be challenging by
significant. Establishing an e-commerce platform can make a marketing situation more
convincing to customers who have an internet enabled device. E-business for store also
complements and keeps-up consumers’ expectation of the actual in-store experience (Srivastava,
2018).
E-Business application enhances convinience and speed. Online customers always have
to wait for a particular set period of time for their purchases to arrive to its destination or even
paying for shipping. Similarly, brick and mortar merchants take time while serving the customer
to satisfy them. In that case, retail stores need to emprace the value to deliver promptly to
achieve positive review and high level of satisfaction from clients (DR.K.VANITHA, 2012).
retailers neeed to study and determine their markets with local advertising and signage. It is
achievable easily when a company has an online presence that defines its location for custromers
to find the store easily.
According to Halloran (2014), retailers need to know the problems faced by customers
and make them love their brand. Customers might be wondering whether the item is avaailable in
stock or whether there are employees ready to answer their queries. So, retailer need to
acknowledge the hurdles encountered by consumeers and consider effective steps to address
these problems. For instance, a store’s brand image will be maintain if the item ordered by
clients are available in stock. When the item is unavailable, retailers need to consider offering
paired shipping to customers with the help of a skilled customer support team who will answer
any queries posted by clients (Rao and Chandra, 2013).
Social media platforms are crowded with people who can turn out to be potential
customers. In that case, the future of McDonalds still lies on leveraging the value of social

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media. Consumers are not just looking for attractive prices; however, they are also looking for
life experiences and rewarding shopping. Retailers can engage their consumers beyond in-store
experience by developing social media campaigns and encouraging customers to interact with
the brand on different social media platforms like: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tweeter, etc
(Allyson Dooley, C. Jones and Iverson, 2012). McDonalds should embrace its continued exercise
of sharing receipes to customers visiting the brand’s webpage and social media pages. Taking
advantage of technology to provide useful information about products and services offered by
the brand its an effective method of advertising. However, the brand should not floods its
c;ustomers will too much informatio that will take off their attention from brick and mortar.
According to Huang and Benyoucef (2013), social media advertising should be used a resource
to tigh-knit consumers to purchase in future.
McDonalds future should incorporate a number of changes to reframe the experience of
its customers. Retail stores can make their business efficient in organized shelves, signages and
pricing. When a company offers a specific product, thet also need to consider descriptive tags to
favour their comsumers (Kainth and Verma, 2012). A retail store’s match with an online
presence provides an interactive experience as consumers are able to compare prices more
effectively. Another significant method of making an efffective customer experience is creating
checkouts. After a retail store has made effort to bringing customers to the physical store and
help customer gain an in-store experience, distributers should not falter upon a successful
transaction. This includes ensuring all credit cards, EMV cards and all the necessary
communication forms of transactions are streamlined.
Moreover, the action of McDonalds’ incorporation of using mobile sales can be used to
perform transactions everwhere in the brand. Reviews given by customers concerning the

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relevance of online technologies for stores’ brick and mortar are numerous. Kim (2017), argues
that providing an online shopping experience provides a unique client experience due to its
efficiency and less time-consuming. For McDonalds to continue to win in the fast food sector,
managers should launch personal coaching on how its employees need to interact with
customers.
The McDonalds brand should experiment technological ;innovations with various digital
innovation leaders to target more customers in the future. In 2014, the brand’s store in Australia
lauched a touchscreen;ing process of ordering together with customizable gastropub burger.
Also, another store in Canada also include this innitiative to enable the ordering process to be
done in multiple regions. The burger business intends to bring more suggestions to innovation by
rolling out more than a thousand touchscreen kiosks that will enhance self ordering in almost all
McDonals’ stores in future. McDonalds stores’ chain has courted differnce audiences and
c;ustomers that take advantage of the brands regional products. The brand invests heavily in the
e-commerce sector in order to meet all the demands of potential clients. With effort is
streamlined to help the company to stay on top of its competitors in future. To attract more
clients in future, creating an online presence using the lastest technology is apt for the company’s
digital innovation team. With an increased competition rate in the retail sector, managers need to
attract more customers to their physical stores using mobile apps in order to maintain and
increase sales.
IV. Recommendation
McDonald’s should continue its aim to embrace new and innovative technologies in the
advertisement. According to Sharp (2009) formation of effective digital interactions with
potential clients is effective to help the company to know where it is heading to. For McDonalds

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to know gain more brand recognition in the future; the company needs to apply modern
technologies which include:
 Launch standardized sets of software and hardware: McDonald’s future is dependent of
how the marketing team will embrace new technologies to advertise the brands products
and services. Therefore, a global digital team needs to develop a hardware that will
include a kiosk with the same resemblance as those already in the market. These
innovations can be accessible by clients who only have to tap an app to sync their
accounts with the brand. The technological initiative will therefore open up to display a
stock menu that also includes order histories.
 Wireless proximity Sensor: this initiative is significant to enable the brand to trigger
important events. The sensor can operate in smartphones by allowing users to order ahead
of time which can be delivered on a table service once the client visits the store.
V. Conclusion
In conclusion, the success of using technological changes with combining it with brick
and mortar to enhance consumer experience is significant for McDonalds. Creating an online
presence is an important step to determining the future success of retail stores in the competitive
fast food sector (Kainth and Verma, 2012). The retail company needs to work with modern
digital experts to design hardware and software that will meet the competitive ordering process
in mobile apps. Embracing changes of technology is likely to help McDonalds to extend its reach
to new markets. This will also be possible when the store’s employees are trained to execute the
innitiate promptly and effectively. Brand managers and marketers embracement of the concept of
ideation is significant to enhance quality and attracting of potential customers.

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References
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DR.K.VANITHA, D. (2012). Customer Relationship Management on Customer
Satisfaction. International Journal of Scientific Research, 3(4), pp.1-3.
Ha, Y. and Park, M. (2013). Antecedents of Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty for
Emerging Devices in the Initial Market of Korea: An Equity Framework. Psychology &
Marketing, 30(8), pp.676-689. doi: 10.1002/mar.20637
Halloran, T. (2014). Romancing the Brand - How Brands Create Strong, Intimate Relationships
with Consumers. Hoboken: Jossey-Bass.
Huang, Z. and Benyoucef, M. (2013). From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at
design features. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), pp.246-259.
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Lee, E. and Park, C. (2014). Does advertising exposure prior to customer satisfaction survey
enhance customer satisfaction ratings?. Marketing Letters, 26(4), pp.513-523.

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Rao, A. and Chandra, S. (2013). The Little Book of Big Customer Satisfaction Measurement.
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Rodrigues, J., Nikhil, S. and Jacob, S. (2016). Promotional Strategies of McDonalds and Market
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Appendices
Appendix A: McDonald’s Income and Revenue

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Appendix B: McDonald’s Operating Metrics