Management Analysis: McDonald's History, Purpose, and Structure

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of McDonald's, examining its history, purpose, and organizational structure. It delves into the roles and responsibilities of key figures like Andrew Gregory, the CEO of McDonald's Australian Division, and explores the managerial functions he undertakes, including planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. The report also discusses the influence of conceptual, technical, and human skills on the CEO's approach to sustainability, customer service, and innovation. Furthermore, it identifies the managerial roles played by the CEO in various scenarios, such as weekly conferences and assessing new product feasibility. The case study highlights lessons other managers can learn from McDonald's, such as prioritizing customer needs and fostering innovation. Finally, the report draws a comparison between the roles of a CEO in a for-profit and non-profit organization, highlighting the similarities in managerial functions.

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INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT
Student’s Name
Course Name
Professor’s Name
University Name
City, State
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INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT-McDonald’s
Q1. Brief History
Founded in 1948 by Maurice McDonald and Richard McDonald, McDonald’s has risen
to become America’s top food company and the best restaurant chain globally. The global retail
chain has its headquarters based in San Bernardino, California (Delahaye et al.,2009). The
restaurant was later franchised through the introduction of Golden Arches Logo in 1953 at
Arizona. The Company’s first franchise agent was Ray Kroc who joined the company in 1953.
Ray Kroc would later purchase the company from the McDonalds in 1961 for $2.7 million.
Currently, the company's global headquarters are based in Chicago as from 2018. McDonald’s is
currently present all over the world with over 36000 restaurants operating in 120 countries
(Rosenberg, 2019).
Q2. Purpose of McDonald’s
As an organization, McDonald's has a purpose behind its formation and global expansion.
The company aims at becoming the favorite place for customers and their way to drink and eat.
Therefore, the company aims at continuously enhancing the experience of its customers by
continually improving its operations (Gerhardt, Hazen and Lewis, 2014).
Organizational values
Exceptional Customer experience
The company understands clearly that customers are the main reason behind its existence.
I a bid to offer exceptional customer experience, the company offer superior services and high-
quality food at great value and in a welcoming and clean environment. Therefore value,

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cleanliness, service, and quality is the company's goal towards its customers
(Corporate.mcdonalds.com, 2019).
Continuous improvement
McDonald’s is an organization that strives to improve its services and operations
continuously. The company aims at responding to changing system, employee and customer
need through continuous innovation and evolution (Corporate.mcdonalds.com, 2019).
Growing businesses profitably
McDonald’s has a responsibility towards its shareholders. In achieving this, the company
aims at providing sustainable growth through a focus on the health of the organization's system
and its customers.
Giving back to the community
Giving back to the community is a major area of focus for the organization. McDonald’s
aims to engage in charity work help make the world a better place and support its customers in
building better communities (Corporate.mcdonalds.com, 2019).
Incorporation of ethical practices in operations
Ethical operation is one of the areas the organization focuses on. McDonald’s
incorporates integrity, honesty, and fairness in all its operations.
Belief in the McDonald’s system
The company highly believes in its organization’s system. This achieved through
balancing the interest of the employees, suppliers, and owners(Corporate.mcdonalds.com,
2019).
Commitment to its people

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McDonald's is also highly committed to its people. Commitment to its people is
demonstrated through rewarding achievement, developing leaders, nurturing talents and
providing opportunities (Corporate.mcdonalds.com, 2019).
Organization structure and role of people in achieving the organization's purpose
McDonald's has a divisional organizational structure. Under this structure, the global
chain is divided into different components, given responsibilities as per their operational
requirements. Each of these divisions is tasked with the responsibility of handing .specific
responsibilities (O'Neill, Beauvais, and Scholl, 2016). McDonald’s aims tat supporting flexibility
and autonomy through its divisional organization structure. The structure’s characteristics
include global hierarchy, performance-based divisions and a function based groups (Thompson,
2019). As a way of ensuring that the organization meets its purpose, employees are expected to
abide by organizational values at all times
3. Andrew Gregory’s role in McDonald
As the CEO of McDonald’s Australian Division, Andrew Gregory is responsible for
overseeing the company’s operations in Australia. In particular, he responsible for carrying out
differ managerial functions including planning, organizing, directing and staffing.
Planning
The CEO is responsible for deciding on the future course of action for McDonald's
Australian Division. In this function, he is tasked with the responsibility of deciding what needs
to be done and how it needs to be done to enhance sustained growth (McNamara, 2009).
Organizing
It is also the role of the CEO to organize the company’s human, financial and physical
resources to achieve goals of the organization in Australia. In particular, he has to identify

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activities, classify the groups of activities, assign duties and delegate authority and coordinates
relationships in the entire Australian market (McNamara, 2009).
Staffing
Andrew is also responsible for keeping the organization’s structure in the Australian
market manned. As the CEO of the Australian branch, he is responsible for ensuring that
leadership roles within various Australian branches are assigned to the right persons by manning
personnel development, appraisals, and selection (McNamara, 2009).
Directing
He is also responsible for directing operations of the Australian division. The CEO does
this by motivating employees, supervising, guiding and influencing Australian divisional
operations for the achievement of organizational objectives(McNamara, 2009).
Controlling
Controlling is a managerial function involving measurement of organizational
accomplishments and comparing them against the established standards to establish any
deviations. The CEO is responsible for ensuring that the operations of the organization’s
Australian branch are carried out as per the established standards (McNamara, 2009).
The activities of the CEO differ from those of an assistant manager at a McDonald
restaurant in that while the CEO is responsible for the operations of the organization across all
Australian branches, the assistant manager at one of the restaurant is only responsible for
overseeing the operations of that particular restaurant.
Question 4: How conceptual, technical and human skills influence the CEO’s approach
Gregory’s conceptual, technical and human skills influence his approach towards
sustainability, customer service, and innovation in multiple ways. Through his conceptual skills,

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Andrew can think analytically about McDonald's and how the organization can achieve its goals
objectively (Jiang, Lepak, Hu and Baer, 2012). It enables him to set goals and seek effective
ways of achieving organizational objectives. In the achievement of the organization's objectives,
the manager needs to work collectively with various stakeholders. Through human skills, the
CEO can communicate, empathize, encourage, motivate and work with employees to achieve
organization goals (French, 2009).On the other hand, technical skills give the CEO skills to
perform technical roles such as IT and use specific tools. Through these skills, the CEO can
encourage innovation, improve sustainability and customer service in McDonald's Australian
division.
Question 5 Managerial roles
Weekly conferences with managerial teams
In holding weekly conferences with the management teams, the CEO would be playing a
controlling function. Through such meetings, the CEO together with the management team
would establish performance standards for the organization, measure actual performance and
compare performance with established standards and finally institute corrective action (Dumas,
La Rosa, Mendling and Reijers, 2013).
Assessing the feasibility of adding a new product to McDonald’s menu
By assessing the feasibility of adding a new product to McDonald’s menu, the CEO
would be playing a planning function. Planning involves determining a future course of action
and deciding beforehand on the appropriate course of action to achieve the predetermined goal
(Nothhaft, 2010). Through the introduction of a new product, the CEO would be working
towards bridging the gap between the current state of the organization and future state (Nothhaft,
2010).

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Keeping employees focused on the company’s commitment to its customers
By keeping the employees of McDonald’s focused, the CEO would be playing a directing
function. Directing is a management function through which managers guide, instruct and
oversee the performance of their human resources towards the realization of certain pre-
established organizational goals. It involves communication, leadership, motivation, and
supervision by playing this function; the CEO would keep the employees of McDonald’s focused
on meeting customer expectations.
Question 6: Lessons from McDonald's
One of the lessons that other managers can take from McDonald’s is the prioritization of
their customer’s needs. Based on this case study it is evident that McDonald’s places high value
on its employees through embracing new trends and changes in the market. Focusing on
customers also makes it possible to make them part of the organization’s journey enabling them
to offer feedback on what they believe would be done better in the organization (Dobni, 2010).
By adopting this approach, other managers can enhance the competitiveness of their organization
and promote long-term success.
Another key lesson is on innovation. McDonald’s is an organization where innovation is
highly encouraged. Through innovation, McDonald's has maintained its competitiveness and
improved its customer’s experience. Other managers can also use the same approach to improve
the experiences of their customers and improve the competitiveness of their organizations.
Finally, there are no notable differences between being the CEO of a non-profit
organization and being CEO at McDonald's Australia. This is because both are leaders of
organizations tasked with similar managerial responsibilities within their organization. Although

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some differences between the two organizations exist concerning funding, diversity of audience
and funding, managerial function are not affected (Dobni, 2010).
References
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Nothhaft, H., 2010. Communication management as a second-order management function: Roles
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