BUSM1228: Addressing Challenges Faced by McDonald's Restaurant

This report analyzes the challenges confronting McDonald's restaurant, a global fast-food giant, focusing on operational hurdles within a competitive market. It examines issues such as the impact of ever-changing technology, evolving customer expectations, and the complexities of foreign government regulations. The report explores the effects of these challenges on marketing segmentation, brand positioning, and operational flexibility. Furthermore, it provides actionable strategies for managers and human resource practitioners to address these challenges, including leveraging technology, building strong relationships with foreign governments, and developing robust business plans. The report highlights the importance of adapting to market dynamics, enhancing customer satisfaction, and maintaining a competitive edge in the fast-food industry. By focusing on these strategies, McDonald's can navigate the challenges and sustain its market position. This report is designed to provide insights and practical recommendations for improving the performance of McDonald's operations.

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 1
CHALLENGES FACED BY MCDONALD’S RESTAURANT AND HOW TO ADDRESS
SUCH CHALLENGES
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Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 2
Introduction
McDonald’s restaurant is recognized to be massive eatery chain that operates by
producing food and retailing fast food. The restaurant serves up nearly forty-seven million
customers in its day-to-day services within the international community. Rather than being a
fast-food restaurant, McDonald’s restaurants operated by different kinds of ventures of
businesses like the affiliate, franchisee, or the company itself (Gorham, Gibson, and Irlbeck
2016, p.4). Through operations of continual technology survey alongside innovation and
promotion, McDonald’s have altered its functions from the insignificant restaurant to fast chain
restaurant dealing with quick food. Different challenges face the advancement of activities of
McDonald’s that managers, human resource (HR) practitioners are required to perform to
manage such problems. Additionally, operations of McDonald’s Restaurant have for an extended
duration considered as one of the most successful businesses in dealing with fast food globally
(Gayle and Luo 2015, p.142). The process of McDonald's operations does not pose the date of
expiry as it satisfies the most significant desires as well as the needs of customers, workers, and
other stakeholders. The actions of McDonald’s is filled with the vision alongside prospect to
continue being competitive in various marketplaces. The actions of McDonald’s could improve
and be successful if its managers concentrated on administering along with controlling their
operations appropriately (Astuti 2018, p.96). Therefore, this research paper examines challenges
countered by McDonald’s restaurant and what managers and human resource (HR) practitioners
need to do to deal with such challenges.
Challenges faced by McDonald’s Restaurant
The operations of McDonald’s restaurant face several challenges in competing within the
industry that deals with fast food. Cases of marketing segmentation, targeting alongside brand

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 3
positioning, and the use of advanced technology are some of the challenges that affect operations
of the restaurant (Velikova, Canziani, and Williams 2019, p.7). McDonald’s has particular
strengths in those sectors of marketing segmentation, targeting, and brand positioning. Therefore,
some of the notable key challenges that affect operations of McDonald’s restaurant consist of
ever-changing and use of technology increase change in expectations of customers and foreign
government laws as well as regulations. All these challenges have made the restaurant to reduce
profits that they earn in the ever contested market in dealing with fast food provision and
retailing. The challenges have made it tough for McDonald’s to introduce different types of meal
categories to different categories of ages. Additionally, the challenges faced by the restaurant
have negatively affected its psychographic segmentation, segmentation of behaviors, and brand
positioning (Letsa 2017, p.113). The challenge of the appropriate use of technology results in a
lack of flexibility in operations, giving the company’s fast food bad image, leading to slow and
inaccurate services, and leading to price sensitivity.
Ever-Changing Technological Usage
The presence of advancement in technology has both positive and negative impacts on
almost every department within McDonald’s Restaurant. Although, operations of this restaurant
rely directly as well as indirectly on convenience and speed of technology used during services
(Zavadynska 2018, p.97). For example, technological usage has altered the considerable section
of the dining experience of fast food not just for the targeted alongside esteemed clients, but it
has impacted workers. Such technological changes have been noticed to have continuous been
capable of turning large food business operations in diverse ways. Therefore, with ever-
increasing advancement in technology, different online blogs, as well as the fashion of online
reviews have changed to be famous in the operations of McDonald’s. As soon as customers

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 4
depart from the restaurant after seeking services and fast foods, they are always capable of
having a way of expressing their range of views concerning the experience gained from the
restaurant (Sigala 2013, p.65). However, the single case of negative reviews by the customers
often harms the image of McDonald’s business negatively. Hence, ever-changing technology has
had a vital impact on the actions of McDonald's in varied ways
It is always apparent that ever-changing alongside use of technology is continually
altering operations of McDonald’s by leading to innovations in operations. It has to turn out to be
essential for the McDonald’s management to upgrade the use of technology for the restaurant to
be capable to effectively compete with their business rivals such as Starbucks within
international marketplaces (Hanaysha 2016, p.310). The use of technology has negatively
affected the services of the restaurant. For instance, McDonald’s was struck when the undercover
investigation on TV accused its operations of using the mainland supplier that relabeled expired
meat. Several targeted and esteemed customers were able to watch the investigative programs
making them avoid the products of this restaurant (Eneberg and Holm 2015, p.18). Therefore,
with ever-increasing and changes in technological usage, McDonald’s has to focus on improving
its ideas of communicating with clients on different social media sites as a way of promoting its
online operations to remain competitive in the markets.
Increase Changes in Expectations of Customers
The increase in expectations of clients has lead to cases of psychographic segmentation
within the operations of McDonald’s. The segmentation that relies on customers’ lifestyle, their
activities, and opinions in defining markets, making it difficult for the company to focus on
producing different fast foods to suit the requirements of everyone’s culture. The restaurant often
finds it tough to deal with varying cases of consumer buying behavior into accounts (Borisova

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 5
2017, p.117). Hence, there is always a need for the management to invest more funds to improve
the production of fast food to meet the different needs and lifestyles of customers. As recorded
by Kim and Young (2014, p. 72), increase in changing expectations of customers is expected to
increase the budget of management and other business operators within the McDonald. The
increase in budget is necessary due to the evolving interests towards finding new stuff that will
lead to more increased expectations of targeted customers from the operations of the restaurant.
Hence, the quality of food offered by the restaurant, sufficient ambiance, and appropriate help is
the significant pieces of satisfaction of customers that McDonald’s always has to deal with in
different markets. The need to focus on satisfying different needs and desires make it difficult for
the restaurant to increase its operations effectively.
The ideas of an increase in different expectations of the customers remain to be a major
challenge in operations of McDonald’s that try to provide quality food around international
markets. With varying improvements in the restaurant businesses, different expectations of
various customers are always changing drastically (Cant and Erdis 2014, p. 931). Multiple clients
expect useful as well as quickens in every activity of business within the McDonald’s. Different
customers around international markets look for timely reservations as they hope to achieve their
orders of fast foods and payments as per their plan (Hossain, Enam, and Farhana 2017, p.924).
Various customers are also aware of the fact that there are several alternatives for technology
present within the market that can enable the restaurant to provide enhanced services of fast food
delivery and sales.
Foreign Government Laws as Well as Regulations
McDonald’s restaurant as the multinational corporations, in most instances, faces the
major challenge of dealing with several sets of authority regulations and set laws. Such

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 6
challenges often make the management of the restaurant to incur extra charges in its operations
to pay required fees and bribe their ways to foreign markets. As stated in the study by Grosul
and Ivanova (2017, p.21), foreign governments where McDonald’s established its operations or
become ready to internationalize are always increasing their taxes of value-added duty in
different resources as well as service. Some countries also tend to tighten their compliance
regulations as a way of preventing McDonald’s restaurant from establishing its operations in
such regions. The variations in-laws and regulations in foreign nations often mean that
McDonald’s has to adopt useful to their policies of activities (Marquette, Mahrinasari, and
Bangsawan 2017, p.613). On the manner, they deliver their products of fast food to various
countries that they export their merchandise targeted clients. Such services always require
McDonald’s restaurant to improve charges needed to appoint different local experts that are
capable of maintaining abreast of variations alongside agree openly with varying administrators
of the international authority.
How to Address Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and
Managers and human resource (HR) practitioners of the McDonald’s restaurant can use
different techniques to address challenges that the corporation faces in its international operators
of provision and retailing of fast foods. The corporation needs to focus on improving market
variables as a way of resolving different challenges that affect its operations (Chyrychenko 2018,
p.8). The restaurant’s managers and HR practitioners have the mandate of considering its entry
policy in new markets and whether outlining a joint plan with the regional organization might
effectively suit targets of operations. Some of the ways that managers and HR practitioners can
use to address cases of challenge that the McDonald’s restaurant faces include the use of current
advanced technology in operations and creating good rapport and relations with different foreign

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 7
governments (Letsa 2017, p.113). Other ways consist of developing an appropriate business
strategy, plan, and budget to address cases of increased changes in customer expectations.
Use of Current Advanced Technology in Operations
The utilization of advanced technology in the operations of McDonald’s restaurants can
be useful. Such usage of advanced technology can help in enhancing its services on how they
produce different products that are considered to b of high quality and healthy as per various
demands from different customers from different nations (Zavadynska 2018, p.101). Besides, the
utilization of advanced technology can help in making the McDonald’s restaurant management
and HR practitioners to understand the present international marketplaces adequately. Through
proper understanding of different global markets can effectively help the organization to have
effective planning of operations. Moreover, technology can also aid in processes of reducing
cases of dangers posed to McDonald’s by different rivals such as Domino’s Pizza, Burger King,
Subway, and Dunkin’s Brand s, among other brands. The reduced completion by the use of
advanced technology can help managers and HR practitioners to understand practical techniques
that the company needs to use to enhance the manner it operates in various marketplaces. Hence,
the use of technologies in operations can aid the corporation in being competitive through its
process of production, retailing, and distributing fast foods (Sigala 2013, p.71). The technique
can improve the functioning of McDonald’s by creating the superior value of clients through
delivering services, creating the premium product or image of brands, as well as utilizing
resources that comply with the targeted marketplaces.
Creating Good Rapport and Relations with Different Foreign Governments

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 8
The idea of attaining appropriate business partners together with developing the best
relationship with several foreign governments and businesses can assist McDonald’s to adapt
effectively in international markets. During the process of internalizations, McDonald’s
managers and HR practitioners need to face conflict with appropriate business policies and
techniques that follow the governmental directives in different nations. Hence, the development
of a strong relationship with various foreign companies like those that deal with storage,
shipping, and logistics companies that deal with fast food can help this restaurant to develop its
business actions (Gorham, Gibson, and Irlbeck 2016, p.5). Hence, the presence of local and
international expertise acknowledge can make McDonald’s restaurant to attain several
advantages in their collaborations with different businesses in global markets.
Developing Appropriate Business Strategy, Plan and Budget
The challenge faced when McDonald's restaurant rushes to internationalize operations
without appropriate planning can be resolved through the creation of proper business policy and
budget for actions. The advancement of the appropriate strategy of improving brands can help
the restaurant to enhance and meet the different needs of customers that continuously change
(Cant and Erdis 2014, p.96). The improvement of appropriate business strategy by McDonald's
can assist in improving how it competes with its main rivals, such as Domino’s Pizza, Burger
King, Subway, and Dunkin’s Brand around foreign markets (Gayle and Luo 2015, p.145). The
idea can also be useful in assisting the restaurant in examining the manner it spends different
funds in its operations to meet the ever-changing demand and desires of clients. Hence, this
strategy, when implemented by managers and HR practitioners, can help in reducing the costs of
services while increasing the demands and meeting the needs of different customers.
Conclusion

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 9
According to the study conducted in this paper, it can be concluded that various
challenges often affect operations of McDonald’s Restaurant in the provision of quality and
quantity of fast foods. Some of the significant challenges have been found to consist of ever-
changing and use of technology, increase change in expectations of customers, and foreign
government laws as well as regulations. Besides, there are different ways that the managers and
HR practitioners of the McDonald’s Restaurant can use to address the challenges facing its
operations. Some of the recommendations of addressing these challenges comprise of the use of
current advanced technology in services, creating good rapport and relations with different
foreign governments, and developing appropriate business strategy, plan, and budget.

Challenges Faced by McDonald’s Restaurant and How to Address Such Challenges 10
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