The Strategic Marketing McDonald's

THE STRATEGIC
MARKETING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
A 1....................................................................................................................................................1
Covered in PPT...........................................................................................................................1
A2.....................................................................................................................................................1
Evaluate different approaches to conducting an internal environmental analysis......................1
Evaluate different approaches to conducting an external environmental analysis......................2
Assess the integration of internal and external analysis..............................................................3
A 3....................................................................................................................................................3
Role of marketing research process and its relationship to consumer behaviour.......................3
Different types of consumers and their behaviour in B2B and B2C markets.............................4
Role of relationship marketing in customer behaviour analysis.................................................4
A 4....................................................................................................................................................5
Factors to be taken into account in development of marketing plan...........................................5
Develop an implementable plan for McDonald's........................................................................5
Design monitoring system that are capable of identifying performance deviations...................6
Anticipate the need for contingency plans..................................................................................7
A 5....................................................................................................................................................7
Evaluate requirements of marketing strategy..............................................................................7
Relationship between a marketing strategy and corporate strategy............................................7
Explain how marketing strategy addresses competitive forces and its impacts..........................7

Design a dissemination process to ensure internal stakeholders are informed to marketing
strategy........................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The organisation focus on capitalising on the current and potential strengths for providing
better value to its target customers. McDonald's is an American fast food chain restaurant
business that was founded in the year 1940. Products offered by McDonald's includes soft
drinks, hamburgers, French fries, salads, wraps, deserts, coffee and breakfast. McDonald's
provide employment to approx 210000 persons. The present report explains that principles of
strategic marketing that includes analysis of relationship between corporate strategy and
marketing strategy. The report explains understanding of carrying out strategic environmental
analysis and role of customer behaviour in marketing strategies. Further in the report,
development of implementable strategic marketing plan is done.
MAIN BODY
A 1
Covered in PPT
A2
Evaluate different approaches to conducting an internal environmental analysis
McDonald's aims at analysing and evaluating its internal environmental factors in order
to assess the internal capabilities and resources (Didner, 2015). The internal environmental
analysis provides means for identifying the strengths that needs to be built on and the weakness
that needs to be overcome while formulating business strategies (Approaches to Internal
Analysis. 2011). The approach of internal analysis is SWOT that is used by McDonald's for
assessing the internal environmental factors, which is shown as below:
Strengths
 McDonald's enjoys strength of having
strong brand name.
 It has large product range.
 It makes use of effective promotional
strategies.
 It has developed trust and image in the
minds of target customers.
Weaknesses
 limited range for vegans and vegetarian
food.
 The food of company is considered as
unhealthy (Kumar, 2015).
 There are no alternatives for French
fries in UK.
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 Strong customer base and brand
loyalty.
 Long queues in busy and peak hours.
Opportunities
 it can sell wider range of vegetarian
food (Key and Czaplewski, 2017).
 It can also increase fish products.
 Company can introduce speciality fries
such as sweet potato fries. McDonald's can also tap into coffee
market or Café's.
Threats
 McDonald's has threat of intense
competition in the food and beverages
industries within UK.
 Changing taste and preferences of
consumers.
 People chooses to stay healthy and
avoids having fast food items.
Evaluate different approaches to conducting an external environmental analysis
The approach that can be used by business organisation to identify and assess the external
environmental factors is PESTLE (Key and Czaplewski, 2017). McDonald's aims at assessing its
external environmental factors so that it can effectively formulate its marketing and business
strategies. Following is given the PESTLE analysis of McDonald's:
Political factors: While formulating the corporate and marketing strategies, McDonald's needs
to effectively assess the political factors. For example, increasing trade agreements and
decreasing export duties can lead to provide opportunities for McDonald's. Whereas, guidelines
for diet and health can bring threat for company.
Economical factors: stable or rapid economic growth of country can benefits McDonald's for
operating its business. Therefore, analysis of economic factors needs to be done effectively.
Social factors: This factor lead to bring great impacts on the business as it includes taste,
preferences, culture and beliefs of target consumers. It may include change in disposable income
of customers, changing cultural diversity, or trend of healthy lifestyle.
Technological factors: McDonald's needs to effectively analyse and assess the technological
environmental factors as it includes changes in technology or techniques or related trends within
the business environment (Lockrey, 2015). This may bring both opportunities or threats for
company and it includes use mobile phones for selling, automation of business activities and
moderate research and development within industry.
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Legal factors: laws and regulatory framework also impacts the business activities of
McDonald's. It includes laws for minimum wage rate, regulations of animal welfare and
increasing health and safety regulations.
Environmental factors: This includes factor relating to natural environment and it may bring
great impacts on the business activities of McDonald's. It may include corporate social
responsibility, climatic conditions of some region and sustainability of environment.
Assess the integration of internal and external analysis
Internal environmental analysis focuses on identifying internal capabilities and resources
of business and it includes strength, weakness, opportunities and threats (Key and Czaplewski,
2017). And the external environmental analysis helps in identifying and assessing the factors
available outside of the business environment. McDonald's aims at integrating internal and
external analysis so that it can formulate effective marketing strategy by considering both
affecting factors. The external analysis of business environment can lead to bring various
opportunities for business that can be achieved by using the strength of the company. For
example, the political factors provides opportunity for increasing market share through
increasing the trade agreements with different country, this can benefit or opportunity can be
gained by using the strength of company such wide product range and motivated staff.
A 3
Role of marketing research process and its relationship to consumer behaviour
Marketing research plays an important role in the strategic marketing of business
organisation. The research marketing focuses on gathering and understanding information related
to target consumers, business climate, demographics and it also involves introduction and testing
of new products and services data.
The consumer behaviours can lead to bring impacts on the marketing research and
strategies of the business. Consumer behaviour is the study of buying behaviour or tendency of
target customers (Kumar, 2015). There are various factors that leads to affect the buying decision
of the customers such as cultural, social, economical, technological, personal or psychological.
The marketing research of McDonald's aims at understanding the buying of target customers so
that it can according formulate the marketing strategies of business and helps business to
accomplish targeted goals and objectives. The researcher aims at effectively understanding the
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buying behaviour as this can impact the development of products and services of McDonald's as
well. The psychology of target customers like what they think or feel about the products of
McDonald's or the overall brand needs to be effectively understood by the marketing researcher.
The research needs to also assess about how customers can be influenced for buying the new
products of McDonald's.
Different types of consumers and their behaviour in B2B and B2C markets
B2C markets refers to Business to Consumers in which business organisations sells the
products and services directly to target customers (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017). B2B
markets refers to Business to Business markets in which businesses sell their products and
services to other businesses. Both B2c and B2B market aims at building effective relationship, it
only differ in how one can maintain the relationship. In B2B markets, building and maintaining
relationship is critical. The B2B markets are smaller in size as compared to B2C markets. B2B
can have hundreds or thousands customers and B2C can have thousands or millions of
customers. The B2B are generally the subsets of marketplace which focuses on selling of
industrial products, financial services or consulting services (Lockrey, 2015). B2C markets deals
in consumer durable products, durable goods, or food and beverages markets. The customer's
trust and loyalty can be built by providing them with quality products and services and also
enough value for their money.
Role of relationship marketing in customer behaviour analysis
Customer behaviour analysis refers to the process for reaching the customers with timely
and relevant communications that starts with understanding of what customers prefers and like,
their interaction history and business relationship tenure and also their marketing and distribution
channel preferences (Armstrong and et.al, 2015). Relationship marketing refers to building
effective relationship with the target customers and retaining them. McDonald's can achieve
long-term benefits by effectively analysing the customer behaviour and building effective
relationship with them. This will lead to provide great benefits and advantage to company by
increasing the brand awareness in the minds of target customers and building trust and loyalty of
customers.
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A 4
Factors to be taken into account in development of marketing plan
McDonald's aims at developing and effective marketing plan which is a comprehensive
blueprint or document that aims at outlining the marketing and advertising efforts of the
company (Baker, 2016). The marketing plan focuses on describing the business activities and
operations which are involved in accomplishment of particular marketing goals and objectives.
McDonald's needs to consider various important factors while formulating the marketing plan
and marketing strategies for bringing out best results and outcomes. The factors that needs to be
considered while formulating the marketing plan includes target audience as it greatly impacts
the business and business activities. McDonald's also needs to take into the account the business
goals and objectives while developing the market plan (Cacciolatti and Lee, 2016). The business
of McDonald's is to introduce healthy food items in its product range. It also needs to include the
different marketing channels that can be used and team required to perform various task and
activities and at-last the budget for the marketing and other activities of business.
Develop an implementable plan for McDonald's
Executive summary: McDonald's is a fast food chain restaurant business and it has its chain
restaurant business spread all over world wide. McDonald's have approx 37855 restaurants and it
provides employment to around 21000 employees (Cross, Belich and Rudelius, 2015).
Vision: The vision of McDonald's is to provide best and quick services to its employees. Being
best refers to providing outstanding services, quality, value and cleanliness in order to make
every customer smile.
Mission and objectives: McDonald's sets its mission statement as to be the favourite place for
customers for having food and drink. The goals and objectives of McDonald's is to introduce
new healthy food product i.e. fruit and mix vegetable salad in its current product range.
Situation analysis: McDonald's is a service-oriented and customer-oriented company which
strives for offering combination of great quality and tasty food products at value prices and also
excellent services (Didner, 2015).
SWOT analysis is done to identify the strengths and weakness of company and assess its internal
business environment.
Strength of McDonald's are:
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 quality of food products
 cleanliness of restaurants
 patent and trademark
Weakness of McDonald's are:
 intense competitive markets
 limited range of vegetarian food
Opportunities of McDonald's are:
 enter into coffee markets
 introduce range of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food products
 growth of fast food industry
Threats of McDonald's are:
 changing preferences of customers (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017)
 people choose to have health food products
Market segmentation: This is the process for diving target markets into different groups.
McDonald's aims at introducing new food products and according divides the target markets into
geographical, behavioural and demographic segmentation.
Marketing strategies: McDonald's aims at introducing new products in the target market place.
The marketing strategies which can be used are: better relationship with customers, employees
and other stakeholders, increase in productivity and sales, attractive advertisement and food
presentation, increase market share.
Design monitoring system that are capable of identifying performance deviations
McDonald's aims at introducing new food product in the markets and aims at monitoring
the performance deviations. Monitoring is the identification and recording of activities which
takes place in certain program. Company can ask for feedback from both customers and
employees in order to monitor the performance. Feedback from customers will suggests
organisation regarding the performance of current and newly introduced food products and
services (Hasan and Ali, 2015). Feedback form employees may help organisation to bring
improvement in business activities or operations to get better results and outcomes. The
monitoring tools can guide organisation to bring out further changes in business activities,
operations or products and services as suggested by various monitoring system and tools.
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Anticipate the need for contingency plans
The need for contingency plan allows business organisation to return to its normal
operations and activities as soon as possible after unforeseen events (Key and Czaplewski,
2017). McDonald's may face various set of risks and it may lead to affect the organisation's
ability for continue its operations and activities. Business organisation can prepare for unsure
events and risks which are beyond their control by formulating the contingency plans. The main
purpose of contingency planning is to allow McDonald's to get back to its daily business
activities after any unforeseen events.
A 5
Evaluate requirements of marketing strategy
Marketing strategy helps business organisation to develop goods and services in a way
that it leads to provide best outcomes and results. Marketing strategies also helps in discovering
various areas which are affected by the organisational growth and thus helps to create a plan that
can cater needs of target customers. The marketing strategies is important to develop
promotional strategies of business (Kotler and Armstrong, 2015). It gather all information and
provides business to have competitive advantages. The marketing strategy also ensures effective
inter-departmental coordination and accomplishment of targets goals and objectives.
Relationship between a marketing strategy and corporate strategy
The marketing strategy of organisation is considered as the overall game plan that
informs marketing plan. The marketing plan is a document which lays down the different types
and timing for marketing activities. The Corporate Strategy refers hierarchically strategic plan of
the company that aims at defining about the corporate goals and also provide ways for achieving
them within strategic management (Kumar, 2015). Vision and mission of organisation are the
parts of corporate strategy. So marketing and corporate strategies are also similar and need to get
hand in hand to bring out best results.
Explain how marketing strategy addresses competitive forces and its impacts
Strategic Marketing refers to the way an organisation effectively differentiates itself in
the market environment from its competitors. The marketing strategies are formulated by
effectively analysing and assessing the situation analysis, competitive analysis and competitive
forces thus it provides company to have positive and best outcomes (Lockrey, 2015).
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McDonald's aims at developing its Marketing strategies in a way that it effectively address the
competitive forces available in the environment so that it gain better results and outcomes.
Effectively addressing the competition will enable McDonald's to gain competitive advantage,
increasing market share, productivity and profitability.
Design a dissemination process to ensure internal stakeholders are informed to marketing
strategy
Dissemination process or strategies refers to the intentionally developed method for
dissemination of specific project that includes identification of target customers, assessing of
business environment of readiness regarding change (Varadarajan, 2015). This also includes
planning for how effective engagement will be build in the project life cycle and also enables
organisation to get successful results. The McDonald's develops dissemination process so that it
can share the research findings with its internal stakeholders so that they are informed regarding
marketing strategy and to ensure that they are also effectively committed towards it and overall
objectives of company. The internal stakeholders of McDonald's are its employees, management
team and restaurant staff.
CONCLUSION
The organisation aims at developing its marketing strategies in a way that it focuses on
introducing healthy food product item in its product items and increasing market share and
profitability. The marketing research refers to the process of planning and collecting relevant
data and also analysing that data for making decision related to marketing. The marketing
research provides reliable information for the marketing decision making process. The present
report has implemented internal and external analysis of business environment so that it can
formulate effective strategic marketing planning.
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REFERENCES
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segmentation: An exploratory study. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing
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Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G., 2015. Principles of Marketing-Global Edition. Pearson.
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Lockrey, S., 2015. A review of life cycle based ecological marketing strategy for new product
development in the organizational environment. Journal of Cleaner production, 95, pp.1-
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Online
Approaches to Internal Analysis. 2011. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.citeman.com/13418-approaches-to-internal-analysis.html>
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