Analysis of McDonald's Restructuring: Media Release and Strategy

This report provides an analysis of McDonald's media release concerning its organizational restructuring and staff layoffs. The company aims to improve communication, reduce bureaucracy, and foster better stakeholder relations by transitioning from a centralized to a decentralized structure. Key elements of the restructuring include dividing jurisdiction at the local level, implementing new communication channels, reducing annual G&A expenditure, and managing pre-tax charges associated with the changes. The report highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement, emphasizing the formation of an internal communication team to facilitate information dissemination and gather stakeholder input. The communication plan's overall goal is to inform stakeholders about the shift to a decentralized structure, involving employees, managers, board members, and investors. The analysis includes details on the audience, key messages, and contact information for media and investor relations. The report references key journal articles and publications to support the analysis of McDonald's restructuring strategy.

Media Release

McDonal's announces Organisation Restructuring and Staff Layoff
McDonald's is considering to increase growth by revamping its existing organisational to a new
one.
McDonald's has undertaken the activities to transform the whole structure of the entity in order
to achieve new objectives viz. To improve the communication between corporate and employees
of the restaurant in order to reduce level of bureaucracy. This is to help the organization in
maintaining healthy relations with stakeholders and have positive impact on the business by
making it ethical (Bauer & Falcone, 2012).
The highlights of the new strategy are:
 To change the structure from centralised to decentralised by making divisions at local
level by dividing the jurisdiction.
 Increase the growth under new organizational structure by making changes in policies,
strategies and plans which can be implemented within the entity.
 To implement new process and channel for communication for bringing clarity in the
information that can be exchanged between the entity and people working at the
restaurant.
 Reduction of Net annual G&A expenditure by $500million which is not going to affect
the goals of McDonald's.
 To estimate the costs and other charges as pre-tax which is about $80million to
$90million and likely to arise after restructuring. It is considering the severance packages
to employees.
 It is aiming to engage stakeholders and increase their participation in decision making
through effective communication. To incorporate ideas from them to conduct the
business of McDonald's.
Bringing new structure
It is transforming the business through bringing new structure in order to make the activities less
complex and easily manageable. Centralised business whereby only some of the regional offices
are allotted the work of administration. It is going to be a time consuming process which needs
adjustments in internal management as well as externally.
The main focus is to explore number of opportunities after the whole modification is done.
Under this, current regional structure which handles and make decisions that are applicable to
McDonald's that are present in a particular area.
Higher growth
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New structure is a major task that is likely to be completed with formulation of new policies,
plans and strategies. These will be formed on the basis of past records and changes will be made
for making them effective by removing the inefficiency and errors. Furthermore, new structure is
likely to be introduced by considering number of factors, growth being one of them.
The growth is assumed to be aggressive and likely to be achieved through different ways for
which significant time will be provided by the management. This will be headed by an expert
team comprising seniors who are familiar with working of McDonald's and are capable of
holding the position in the company (Council, 2012).
Internal Communication Programme
Stakeholders are important for every sort of business and this is the reason why McDonald's has
emphasized on their engagement. For this purpose, an internal communication team has been
formed to be led by Senior Director of Global Executive and Internal Communications for
launching and handling the matters of internal communication. The main motive is to deliver
actual objective to stakeholders in order to increase their engagement for making it ethical and to
make other people understand the working of McDonald's.
This is going to be difficult to gather all the stakeholders at one place and to disclose the plan of
restructuring but it is required for a long term profit and success along with being competitive.
Cutting G&A expenditure
The organization has analysed that new structure can be achieved through reducing annual
spending of G&A. The amount is likely to be reduced by $500million which is actually a huge
sum. However, it is relevant to the financial goals of McDonald's that is it planning to achieve
within the limited time.
Pre-tax charge and other costs
Restructuring is likely to bring a charge of about $80million to $90million as pre-tax which is
arising due to this two reasons. Employees who will be terminated from the business of
McDonald's in the event of restructuring will be given severance packages. Along with this, costs
of the field offices are going to impact the pre-tax charges.
Stakeholder engagement
Large companies like McDonald's know the importance of stakeholders as they have the capacity
to influence the business of an organization. Hence, the communication channels and in-house
media is going to involve the ideas and views of McDonald's stakeholders in order to increase
their participation for carrying the business in a desired way.
Communication plan
Overall goal
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The aim of communication is to inform its stakeholders about the decision to change the old
structure into a new which is decentralisation of regional offices. “Decentralisation is referred as
delegation of decision making authority at each level in the organisational structure”.It is to
include all internal stakeholders viz. Employees, managers, board of directors and investors.
Specific deliverables
McDonald's is huge chain of food which employs diverse workforce in large number working in
different countries. Also, it has variety of investors who have invested their funds into the
business. “Investors are the individuals or organisations that puts their money into financial
schemes and property with a expectation to earn profits in future”. With the launch of in-house
media, McDonald's wish to circulate its information rapidly to all its branches and stakeholders.
Furthermore, to increase their participation in suggesting strategies and better opportunities for
increasing the profit and growth (Lou, 2014).
Audience analysis
The information for which the news of restructuring is to be delivered is the internal stakeholders
who are important for the business. It is different from external stakeholders and includes
employees, board of directors, managers and investors.
Key messages
The prime message is to engage stakeholders and get their opinions in order to create an
influence on outsiders about the business of McDonald's. This is going to be achieved through
media release to be headed by Senior Director of Global Executive & Internal Communications.
For further information please contact:
McDonald's Corporation
Media relations Investor Relations
Thomas Edward [phone] (Australia)
Phone: [phone] [phone] (London)
e-mail: [e-mail]
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bauer, A., & Falcone, Y. (2012, August). Decentralised LTL monitoring. In International
Symposium on Formal Methods(pp. 85-100). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Council, W. A. A. (2012). Media release. The Council..
Lou, D. (2014). Attracting investor attention through advertising. The Review of Financial
Studies. 27(6). 1797-1829.
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