Individual Analysis of McDonald's: Sustainability and Strategies

This report conducts an individual analysis of McDonald's, focusing on its sustainability practices, challenges, and strategic responses. It examines the external challenges such as environmental, political, social, and legal factors, along with internal challenges like lack of innovation and unhealthy food image. The report explores strategies for implementing sustainability, including setting development policies, emphasizing healthy products, and developing public health policies. The report also provides evidence of McDonald's commitment to sustainability, including CSR reports and stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, the report includes a stakeholder analysis, and scenario planning techniques. The analysis covers company-wide operational improvement strategies. The report concludes by highlighting key recommendations for McDonald's to enhance its sustainability efforts and operational efficiency in the UK market. The report also mentions the importance of adapting to the changing tastes and preferences of customers, and the challenges in maintaining sustainability in the face of various internal and external pressures.

INDIVIDUAL ANALYSIS OF AN
‘ORGANISATION OF THE
STUDENT’S CHOICE’

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Challenges and strategies while implementing sustainability.....................................................3
Evidence provided by the organisation to the stakeholders in relation to genuine commitment
to “Sustainability”.......................................................................................................................6
Company wide Operations improvement strategy in the organisation.......................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The concept of sustainability and operational efficiency is increasing in the business
organisation at a rapid rate. Majority of the companies are involved in investing their resources
in sustainable business world which enhances them to attain competitive advantage. The primary
intention by using this concept is to develop the sustainability of operational excellence which
takes into consideration the social, economic and environmental aspect. The organisation which
will be considered for this report is McDonald which has started its business from the year 1940
which deals in a restaurant industry. In this report, my role is being of consultant to assist firm in
order to take sustainable decisions along with development of an operational excellences. This
report will mainly focus on identifying strategies and challenges which will be associated while
implementing sustainability. The related evidences which will be provided by the organisation in
order to convince shareholders and stakeholders. This report will cover challenges by McDonald
such as food safety measures including use of lower standard raw material, degraded cooking
techniques along with packaging problem. Given three are key challenges which is against of
food security standards and these are in key to impact for effecting brand image of the company.
To overcome all these challenges, imperatives for change starts with planning of quality standard
by first focusing on pre-plan and identification of recommended standards and then pursues for
proper food safety for its customer's.
MAIN BODY
Challenges and strategies while implementing sustainability
The business organisation is subject to various challenges and issues which actually
creates hurdles in the way of success for the company. Similarly, McDonald, UK will also face
certain challenges that will strongly affect the working of the company throughout the business.
These challenges can be internal and external in nature. External challenges are the ones which
affects the company from outside the business operation while internal challenges are the ones
which affect the company from inside resources.
External challenges
 Environmental challenges: The environment is subject to the nature and surroundings
of the business organisation. The climate conditions are highly variable which is creating

major challenge for the McDonald while maintaining sustainability. The poor climate
creates problem of supply and demand by focussing on corporate social responsibility.
Due to this problem, the company fails to maintain the sustainability.
 Political challenges: The political aspect is concerned with the effects of intervention of
the government of country. Under this, the McDonald is facing the crucial challenges of
governmental guidelines for diet and health where it puts pressure or burden on the
restaurant to place more emphasis on health and diet of the customers. Apart from this,
the government of UK has certain health policies which creates another threat in way of
sustainability because the company is required to adopt themselves and work as per the
heath policies which affects them externally.
 Social challenges: The term social is concerned with the changing tastes and preferences
of he customers, demographics, behaviour, buying patterns, etc. This is creating problem
for the company through external challenges which has led to failure in maintenance of
sustainable business world. The addition in cultural diversity factors has strongly affected
McDonald because with this, various needs, requirements and perceptions of the
customers are required to be taken into consideration as per different regional and
cultural markets. If the company fails to do this, then it will not only lead to failure of
sustainability but also generates low profits and revenue.
 Legal challenges: The term legal is concerned with adopting certain laws and
legislations but if there are strict laws and McDonald fails to do this then it will lead to
poor adoption of sustainability. For instance, in UK the concept of minimum wage is
increasing at a rapid rate which will put pressure on McDonald to pay the respective
minimum wage in order to compliance with the law which can lead to reduction in profit
and ultimately affects the sustainable programs of the company.
Internal challenges
 Lack of innovation: The McDonald fails to produce new and innovative products. The
internal business environment is very poor in producing and bringing new products to the
customers. This creates pressure on the company to invest more in research and
development department and less on sustainability.
 Unhealthy food image: From years, McDonald has been involved in several
controversies regarding the unhealthy image and brand of the food. Apart from this, the

food of McDonald is not good for health as well specially for those who are suffering
from obesity. This will adversely affect the sustainability program of the company.
 Impact of recession: Not only external but the internal environment of the McDonald is
also affected by recessions because various people were forced to leave the job. Due to
this, the existing potential employees became uninterested and demotivated towards the
working of the company and this has led to failure in implementing proper sustainability
programs.
 Lack of cooperative culture: When the internal environment is not properly leaded and
handled then this will led to poor cooperative culture where people will not feel
comfortable while working with one another. This will hamper the team spirit and low
productivity of the McDonald will be signified which will ultimately lead to lack of
sustainable business environment.
Opportunities Threats
Strength
Strong brand recognition is one of the
major strength for McDonald's. They
are well known for food quality due to
which they had achieved brand loyalty.
Moreover, McDonald's can go for look
to develop process to new material,
high protective packaging to convert
their strength into USP.
Strength of the McDonald's is brand
loyalty along with unique customer's
recall value. They can use it to keep
the determination of customer priority
such as proper process & packaging to
remove threat of rising stiff level of
competition in the market.
Weaknesses
Weakness of the McDonald's is its low
cost menu and they put down high cost
from cooking till packaging of a food.
This can be convert into opportunity, if
they would gone for overall adaptation
of advancement into the food process.
Weakness of the McDonald's is less
control on cost, as because of high
demand of cheap fast food and higher
incurring of cost to produce it. If an
effective planning of cost would not
be happen, it may lead to threat.
Scenario planning: It deals with making right and point assumption to develop long
term plan to achieve defined objectives of the firm. In context of the McDonald's, firm has

reached out to customer's about lack of food safety & quality control, as they have pro-founded
increase in cost. Here, scenario is about taking right measures such as use of quality tools such as
TQM (total quality management) and JIT to improve. To implement effective change operation
strategies, its necessary to take and check customer feedback in pre-stage & takes decision
making to develop or improve product delivery to its customer on an effective manner. Major
focus will be given to using of quality tools such as TQM and JIT.
Stakeholder analysis: In this analysis, priority will be given to development of thought
process of different types of stakeholders. McDonald's stakeholder have command on operations
of the firm and keep interest in its performance. Those people, firm, group of an individual or a
government who uses to keep special interest in business operation.
Who are the stakeholders: McDonald's stakeholder such as customers, investors,
shareholder, other firms, suppliers etc., have major consequences on firm operations of the firm
(How to Identify stakeholders, 2018).
Strategies and recommendation in order to improve or meet the challenges
The above mentioned challenges plays a vital role in affecting the growth and
development of the McDonald. It becomes very important to deal with such challenges because
if they were not handled properly then, the company can never attain the sustainable
environment of business. The following are some of the strategies and recommendations which
must be adopted by internal and external working atmosphere of the company.
 Setting sustainable development policies and objectives: The management of the
McDonald must concentrate on creating and developing certain policies and objectives
which depicts the sustainable development. They must take into consideration that the set
objectives regarding the sustainable business world must be effectively communicated to
the employees and they work together in order to attain the set business goals and
objectives.
 Emphasising on healthy and innovative products: The McDonald is particularly
targetting the children and the ingredients used in the food produced by the company is
quiet unhealthy for everyone. So they must adopt some new ways of producing products
which not only have taste but also contains healthiness. This could be organic food, sugar
free food, wheat or multigrain loafs, etc.

 Developing public health policies: Though this is challenges for the McDonald which
affect them to attain sustainability but this could be improved by adopting healthful
options to customers.
 Increasing disposable income: McDonald has posses the way to improve the
implementation of sustainable programs because it is providing opportunity to the
customers to do not cook at home due to the increase in the income of the people. This is
directly linked to the busy lifestyle of the UK city where people do not get time to cook
and prefer to eat out.
 Increasing interest for corporate environmental programs: McDonald must focus on
maximising the numerous ways through which environmental and sustainability can be
fortify brand of the company and its performance as well.
Evidence provided by the organisation to the stakeholders in relation to genuine commitment to
“Sustainability”
The term “Sustainability” is related to the accomplishment of the requirements of existing
generation without making any kind of compromise with the future generations. This is generally
the combination of three things namely, economic, environmental and social. The environmental
sustainability relates to the potential of the organisation through which rate of harvesting in
recyclable resources can be maintained, emphasis on reducing the carbon footprints, proper use
of waste materials, etc. Economic sustainability concerned with the potential of company in
order to provide support to the defined level of economic production indefinitely. It clearly
determines that the business which needs to be sustainable must be profitable in nature. The
social sustainability is related to the assistance and support to the employees. In this, the business
is required to establish the concentration on retention and engagement strategies.
Stakeholders in McDonald are the individuals who are directly or indirectly associated
with the business and have keen interest in the operations and working of the company. Every
business exist in the market because of the efforts of different stakeholder. The major
stakeholders of the McDonald can be customers, employees, suppliers, etc. Each stakeholders
has different perspective and concern towards the organisation. For instance, the customers are
considered the primary and key people because they are the ones due to which the business is
able to sustain in the market. While employees are another set of stakeholders who are interested
in working as per the mission and vision of the company in order to achieve the desired business

goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. For this purpose, the companies are effectively
collaborating and working with stakeholders in order to know their concern and opinions so that
they can take effective strategic decision for the betterment of the company. The most important
evidence which would convince the stakeholders is that McDonald is strictly following the
concept of sustainability will involve CSR reports.
For the purpose of evaluating CSR reports, the stakeholder engagement is focussed
because of the growth in sustainable and responsible investing. The concept of sustainability
plays a vital role when investors are evaluating and analysing the decisions based on certain
investment. For this purpose, McDonald has successfully adopted the CSR issues into its
investment decisions. The first and foremost criteria which has been adopted relates to the
corporate governance, then climatic changes and last one is human capital. By presenting CSR
reports, the company is able to create an opportunity through which they can communicate
various efforts adopted in relation to the sustainability to different stakeholders. This report
provides transparency and can used as strong tool through which relations can be maintained
with various stakeholders. These CSR reports are different in length, size and structure of
different business organisations. This report contains certain elements like an opening letter from
the company chief officer, CSR policy or mission statement of the company, forward looking
statement and disclosure which address the primary issue.
Company wide Operations improvement strategy in the organisation
The operation improvement strategies are the combination of certain strategies through
which the functioning of internal business environment of McDonald can be adopted. For this
purpose, one of the most important strategy which is normally adopted by various companies is
producing new products and offerings to the customers. With the help of this strategy, the
company will be able to stay competitive. This will be possible because customers want new
products and services everyday due to higher level of competition in the market.
Vision & mission Statement: The vision statement of the McDonald is “to be people
favourite brand and gives eating fast food experience”. Mission statement of the McDonald is to
develop food safety such as using of fresh raw material, using of time and hygienic cooking
process along with effective packaging of their fast food.
Guiding principle: The guiding principles of McDonald relates to promoting and
supporting a diverse and unified team. For this purpose, they hire highly qualified and talented

personnel. They give proper respect to the rights and beliefs of the co workers, customers,
shareholders, etc. They accept the individuals and responsibilities of team in order to meet the
commitments. Therefore, the guiding principle of McDonald relates to the putting emphasis on
maximising the success of the business partners, workers and customers by considering the
importance of teamwork, respect, accountability, integrity and innovation.
SWOT analysis: SWOT analysis stands for strength, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats. On one side, strength & weakness is the part of internal capabilities and opportunities &
threats are mainly concerns about external links of a firm. An analysis of a SWOT of McDonald
discussed below:
Strength
 It stands Second largest restaurant
network in the world.
 McDonald has strong global presence
which makes it recognisable throughout
the world.
 It has good and strong marketing
strategies such that the respective
business goals and objectives can be
achieved effectively and efficiently by
tapping maximum customers.
Weaknesses
 McDonald has a major weakness of the
unhealthy food image because the
ingredients used in the products are not
good and healthy.
 It makes use of trans and beef oil in
their food and this has a n adverse
effect on health of the customers. This
can cause diseases like cancer.
 McDonald faces higher level of
employee turnover rate because of low
salary and higher working pressure.
Opportunities
 The changing lifestyle and increasing
disposable income of people is creating
an opportunity for McDonald as the
fast food industry is also growing and
people are spending the money in dine
out.
 In order to compliance with the
sustainability, McDonald has an
opportunity to accept recyclable and
Threat
 The higher level of competition with
the brands like Burger King, Wendy's,
etc. the customer may shift to the other
brands and minimises the level of
profitability.
 Due to several controversies of the
McDonald, majority of the customers
are losing faith and trust from the brand

green packaging and at the same time
incorporates them as a marketing
strategies and advertisements.
 The lost menu is another important
opportunity for the company to attract
majority of the customers.
as it leads to various health issues.
Sustainable competitive advantage: USP of the McDonald are its taste of the fast food,
which never customer's to away or switch to other one. In present era, where competitors such as
Subway, KFC etc. are giving stiff competition to McDonald's, in response commitment to
wonderful food experience has made McDonald's to face out competition. Its a uniqueness about
the McDonald's. Taste is the pulling point along with cost leadership is another USP of the
McDonald's. It has strong customer service without making any kind of compromise with the
quality of the products.
Vision statement: The vision of McDonald is “to move rapidly in forward direction in
order to drive the most profitable growth and become one better McDonald which is involved in
serving more customers with delicious food every day all over the world”.
Objectives: The primary objectives of the company is “to be the world's largest fast food
chain by the end of 2025 without compromising with the quality”.
Strategies: The strategies consist of the manner in which the desired product will be
reached to the targetted customers with the help of distribution network. It consist of various
marketing and promotional strategies as well so that customer will be aware of new product
which will be developed by McDonald.
Short term goals: McDonald aims to maximise its customer base by 20% with its new
product within the period of 3 years.
Action items: The action plan will consist of proper planning process where sequence of
steps are prepared to succeed in the long run. The plan of action for McDonald's must be to push
the products sold by them not the brand should be put emphasis. As McDonald's will come up
with the new product in order to expand their menu, their focus should be on the affordable
prices. In order to sustain in the market for long duration, McDonald's will target the profitable
market segment where large number of potential customers are available. They should put

emphasises on promotion of McDonald's new offering rather than promoting the McDonald's as
a brand. The company should increases their franchisees in UK which can also help McDonald's
to increase their profits to improve their operations and providing more customer satisfaction.
This action plan can be helpful to McDonald's as they can measure the deviations occurred
between the desired and actual execution of plan. These plans depicts how all the major
functions which can be implemented in the organization.
Scorecard: The scorecard is a tool which helps the organization to have a proper
understanding of how the employees are performing and how their performances are linked with
their performances. McDonald's can get the proper insight of how their current actions are
affecting the company's profitability in the long run. The main aim of scorecard for McDonald's
is to manage the performances of organization. There are certain key performance indicators
(KPI) identified by company to measure the actions on a periodical basis either weekly,monthly
or quarterly. Key performance indicators such as percentage of defective fast food, units sold per
hour to test accuracy of manpower along with customer attained within outlet are some of the
necessary KPI to be takes into consideration. Goals related measures such as use of marketing
plan to accomplishes percent of sales is important to measures the progress. This provide the
insight of how the actual performance of the organization is differentiated from the planned
performance and based on those deviations McDonald's can take the corrective actions for the
future. This balanced scorecard is supported by the top management of McDonald's. There are 4
basic viewpoints in balanced scorecard which involves measuring the financial performances,
tracking the customer satisfaction, covers internal operational goals and intangible factors which
drive future success. These factors helps to determine all the perspectives which helps
McDonald's to have a clear picture of overall performances of organisation.
Execution: The action plans being made by company is executed. After execution, if
there is any deviations in preset action plan then corrective actions will be taken by company to
improve the performances. These plans are the guidelines on which the company has to operate.
The corrective actions are taken for smoothing the operations and functioning of the
organisation. This assures that performances are based on the standards set. The executed plans
gives the feedback for taking the remedial actions which ensures attainment of planned goals on
time. These corrective actions also eliminates the duplication of efforts and increase the

productivity which give advantages in the long run to the company. Therefore, the execution of
action plans correctly improvises the overall profitability and sustainability of the organizations.
Furthermore, plan will be communicated to the major stakeholder via using of verbal and
non verbal mode of communication such as Email, chatbots, audio calling etc., to value its right
purpose or aim.