McDonald's Marketing Essentials: Roles, Functions, and Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of McDonald's marketing strategies and essential functions. It begins with an introduction to marketing essentials and the company's background, followed by a detailed examination of the roles and responsibilities within the marketing function, including distribution, financing, market research, pricing, product and service management, promotion, and selling. The report then explores the functional areas within McDonald's, such as human resources, research and development, administration, IT support, financing and accounting, customer service, marketing, sales, and business development, highlighting their relationship to marketing activities. A critical analysis of the marketing functions and functional areas in relation to the marketing environment is also provided, emphasizing the importance of the seven marketing functions. The report also delves into McDonald's marketing mix and pricing strategies, and concludes with an overview of a marketing plan for the company. The report utilizes illustrations and references to support its analysis, providing a thorough understanding of McDonald's marketing operations.

UNIT 2 Marketing
Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
P1 Roles and responsibilities of marketing function...................................................................1
M1...............................................................................................................................................4
P2 Functional areas in organisation and relation to marketing functions...................................5
M2...............................................................................................................................................7
D1................................................................................................................................................7
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................8
P3 Marketing Mix and pricing strategies of McDonald's. ( M3 and D2.)..................................8
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................12
P4 Marketing plan for McDonald's...........................................................................................12
M4.............................................................................................................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

Illustration Index
Illustration 1: Seven Marketing Function........................................................................................2
Illustration 2: Functional areas in business......................................................................................6
Illustration 3: 7Ps of Marketing mix................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing essentials enables organisation to lead the business to achieve objective. It is
considered as an important element for advertising and promoting of service and products. For
this, various research and audits are conducted by company (Babin, and Zikmund, 2015). This
report is based on the marketing function and functional area of firm. McDonald's is one of the
largest food chain industry of UK. It was established in 1917 at UK, by Ray Kroc and his
brother. The first franchisee was established in 1954 and the 100th was in 1959 at Chicago. The
initial menu of restaurant was burger, fries and beverages. They were focused on the quality of
product, therefore, only limited items were provided initially. The organisation is having 375000
employees, working with McDonald's across the world (Berkowitz, 2016). .
Organisation is having franchisees in 120 countries and delivery services and 36,899
users . McDonald's is having 31230 franchisees across the world in 21559 places. Various
marketing strategies are followed by firm to attract more clients like traditional and advance
(Malhotra, Birks and Wills, 2013). Company follows hierarchy organisational structure, in order
to manage different layers. To identify each culture of firm Charles Handy method can be
considered:
Power: Centralised culture is adopted by McDonald's, to reserve all powers and rights of
company.
Task: Through this organisation divides employees into small groups to improve their efficiency.
Person: In this step firm tries to provide positive work culture in order to in crease efficiency of
staff.
Role: McDonald's involve it in order to make command and instructions clear among different
departments.
TASK 1
P1 Roles and responsibilities of marketing function.
Roles of marketing function is divided into seven segments that are following:
1

(Source: Malhotra, Birks and Wills, 2013 )
Distribution: McDonald's is one of the largest chain of restaurants and food industries. They are
having more than 30,000 restaurants, at 121 locations all around the world. Aimed to become
one of the leading brand of their sector (Judge and Robbins, 2015). This is the first stage of
process, in which distribution channel is established in order to provide services to clients. In
2
Illustration 1: Seven Marketing Function

helps to determine the best way, by considering location, product and services in order to meet
customer's. This process involves innovative approach, as it directly creates impact on client.
Financing: The success of any product depends on proper flow of revenue into business
organisation. Long-term marketing planes depends on trust of organisation, to generate large
amount of revenue (Malhotra, 2014). It also plays an important role in order to provide different
alternative of making payment. Such as credit, debit, net banking. These all facilities help to
attract clients. Major revenue generation source of McDonald's is money paid by customers.
Market Research: In this step information are gathered by organisation, in order to understand
situation. In this process, various parameters are used to make complete analysis of condition. It
helps organisation to make changes or implement new strategies according to situation. This
process deals with data by generating, managing and implementing collected in order to obtain
effective decision and making activities (Lane, 2016). McDonald's consider two basic
management styles:
 Transaction Processing system: This process is used to answer daily questions, like
payment of employees and maintain records. McDonald's, uses this system in order to
maintain record of supplier, raw material, quality and purchase material. Management Information System: It is used to maintain record of essential details of
organisation. All the information related to technologies involved into process and
information of people (Clow and James, 2013). McDonald's implement it in order to store
detailed informations of employees, such as working hours and evaluation of
performance of organisation.
Pricing: In this step prices are finalised in order to provide service to client. It is one the
important process for success of any product, so that more number of users can buy them.
Correct selection of pricing can be a challenging task for the owners. It involves lots of analytical
and evaluation process. For this organisation should conduct effective market research. Along
with this, product should offer benefits to attract clients (Campbell and Martin, 2015).
McDonald's should implement pricing by considering complete evaluation of market in order to
set effective and affordable price.
Product and service management: This is an essential stage of all process. It consists of various
processing such as designing, developing, monitoring and controlling performance. In this
process, all requirements and needs should be considered, in order to meet their satisfaction
3

(Desselle, Zgarrick and Alston, 2016). In order to provide effective service, they provide 24*7
open restaurant. They also have McCafe in order to maintain flow of cash.
Promotion: This is the most familiar term for any business owner. It is considered in order to
advertise and promote service. This process can be effectively done by communicating with
clients. In this stage, all features and specifications of services are presented publicly. In order to
convene people that it will meet your demands. In this different media are involves such as print,
digital and social (Babin and Zikmund, 2015). McDonald's uses various promotional strategies
such are introduced such as coupons and various discounts offers to attract clients. Through this
organisation is able to improve revenue.
Selling: Selling is considered as final stage of seven functions. Through this step, business owner
presents services towards clients. The target can be achieved, if users are satisfied with products.
In order to identify the performance of service, response of customers is enough. To attract
clients, all needs and demands should be implemented carefully. 80% shares of McDonald's are
sells in China, as people of that countries are not influenced by their services (Ormrod, 2014).
Due to which growth of company get effected, due to increasing competition.
M1
Marketing functions are used by McDonald's, in order to manage different process for
promotion of services. It consists of 7 stages such as distribution, pricing, promotion, financing,
selling, marketing information management and product management. By implementing these
stages organisation is able to manage marketing process effectively. In this process, various
distribution channels are considered to provide services on time. Financing is involved to
monitor the inflow and outflow of capital in company. Pricing is used to maintain value of
services so that clients can easily afford services (Boschetti and Massaron, 2016). Promotional
strategies are also included to manage advertisement process, so that services can be presented in
effective manner. Marketing information is also gathered, so that organisation can make
necessary change according to conditions. In order to manage quality and performance of
services product management stage is implemented. Selling is considered as last stage of this
function, it is used to evaluate the sales of service at specific location. On the basis of above
stage changes are implemented. Each stage is interrelated, any follows chronological order.
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P2 Functional areas in organisation and relation to marketing functions.
Various organisations prefer different organisational structure. It depends on departments
of company, their roles and responsibilities. It also varies from one group to another, on the basis
of their skills and capabilities. It helps the firm to improvise performance and maintain it.
Functional area considered by McDonald's:
Human resource:Human resource is required to hire qualified and capable employees. It also
helps organisation in order to achieve objective. Determination of workers salary and packages is
responsibilities of HM department. McDonald's HR department also provides efficient
employees to organisation (Wilson, 2014). Selection of candidates depends on communication
skill of employees. Through this way company is able to attracting clientsTo maintain efficiency
of employees various training and learning programs are organised.
Research and development: In order to make any business organisation successful, creativity
and innovation is important element. Innovative approaches provide lots of opportunities, helps
to make competitive benefit (Wu, Kirkole and Huang, 2016). Research and development
department of McDonald's is accountable for checking and maintaining quality of food services.
Along with these innovative approaches are also implemented in order to develop new products.
5

(Source: Wu and Huang, 2016)
Administration: Administrative body is the fundamental component of any firm. The main
objective is to manage planning and designing for organisation. Administrative block of
McDonald's connects different departments of firm in order to maintain communication.
IT support: McDonald's IT system is able to manage processing of hardware and software in
order to store, maintain and manipulate information (Cavusgil and et. al., 2014). Through this
processing of data become faster, along with this other department are able to access information
easily.
Financing and Accounting: Financing and accounting department of McDonald's monitors the
inflow and outflow of cash into organisation. This process depends on various audits and
researches of company. On the basis of that annual financial statements are prepared by firm.
Customer service: Through client’s queries are answered by representative of company. Clients
who wants to know additional information related to quality and prices of products, can contact
6
Illustration 2: Functional areas in business

with the customer service department of organisation (Siahpush and et. al., 2016). Customer
service of McDonald's are providing 24*7 facilities to their users, in order to solve problems. For
this various platform is provided such as online, telephonic and face to face communication.
Marketing: It is considered as promotional activity of organisation in order to advertise services
and products of organisations. McDonald's involves various promotional strategies, in order to
increase profitability of company (Jacobs, MacRae and Sladyk, eds., 2014). It also helps firm to
increase revenue and growth.
Sales: Success of any organisation depends on sales. McDonald's has various sales teams in
order to maintain sales of organisation.
Business development: This is essentials step in order to extend business in different countries.
For this various researches and audits are conducted, in order to analyse different factors and
situation. Business development is important part of McDonald's, as they are having more than
100 restaurants across globs (Pappas, 2017). In order to effectively implement this in to
organisation, planning and decision-making is important. Along with this it also helps company
to achieve financial stability. It also reflects management of organisation.
M2
Every functional area is provided with different roles and responsibilities. Each of them
are equally important for the marketing of products of company. McDonald's implements the
same in order to achieve marketing objectives of company. They all are involve into
organisation, in order to achieve objective. This process varies from one organisation to another
because conditions also changes (Mittal, 2014). Human resources are the first step of this
functional area, where efficient and capable employees are hired for organisation. The next step
of this process is research and development, in this step various audits are organised in order to
maintain performance accountability of company. Administrative block is also implemented into
organisation, in order to manage effective communication into organisation. IT support is used to
manage different information of staff. Financing and accounting is used to manage flow if capital
into organisation, along with this various new strategy is also implemented in order to increase it.
Customer services are organised to solve queries of clients, about quality and prices.
D1
To critically analyse marketing functioning and functional area related to environment of
McDonald's and maintain the marketing environment of organisation, 7 marketing functional are
7

essential. It helps company to make complete analysis of market strategies that are required for
firm. Through distribution factor, firm is able to make changes into policies, to strengthen shares
of organisation. Financing is also helps the firm to maintain record of accounting, due to this
sales report can be developed in order to identify profitability. Pricing and promotion are very
essential, to present service publicly. It helps firm in order to connects with clients. Products
service management helps in order to analyse performance of services. So that efficiency of
product can be analysed. Selling is the last part of this process, in which growth of company can
be analysed.
In organisational functional, human resource helps by providing effective and capable
employees. It helps to achieve objective (Swenson, Rhoads and Whitlark, 2014). Researches and
development is also helps to analyse competitive advantage of firm. Administration is used to
maintain communication between of various department. IT provides supports by handling and
managing all information effectively. Customer services are used to resolve queries of clients.
Business development helps by planning and designing various stages to expand business.
Task 2
P3 Marketing Mix and pricing strategies of McDonald's. (M3 and D2.)
Marketing mix represents the actions and processes that are required by an organisation,
to promote services and products. Market mix is four levels of decision making process such as
place, product, price and promotion (Types of business organisational structures, 2017). In order
to make deep analysis of product, extended version is also available known as 7Ps marketing
mix. In the extended version physical environment, product and process are present (Babin and
Zikmund, 2015). It helps firm to select correct place for distribution, at affordable prices before
deadline. The comparison of McDonald and KFC's marketing mixs are as follows-
8

(Source: Babin and Zikmund, 2015)
Place: It is one of the important factor for this marketing mix principle. It enables an
organisation, to decide the distribution channel (Functional area of a business, 2017).
McDonald's give emphasis on selecting places. As restaurants are established at reachable places,
so that customer's do not feel any inconvenience to reach (Berkowitz, 2016). It directly impacts
on sales of company. For this, various forms are considered such as:
 Restaurant
 Mobile applications
 websites
 Kiosks
Revenue generation of McDonald's depends on clients only. In order to increase revenue ,
firm is introducing various forms by considering convenient and flexibility of clients.
(Functional area of a business, 2017) McDonald's are operating their order booking process
through websites, apps and telephones. Through this more numbers of clients are placing their
order, who are not able to reach restaurants. This helps organisation to increase sales and
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Illustration 3: 7Ps of Marketing mix