McDonald's Corporation: A Comprehensive SWOT Analysis

This report provides a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of McDonald's, a prominent fast-food corporation. The analysis highlights McDonald's global presence with its extensive network of stores as a key strength, along with the diversification of income streams. However, the report also identifies a lack of product innovation as a weakness. Opportunities include international expansion and strategic partnerships. Threats include intense competition and changing consumer preferences toward healthier food choices, along with currency fluctuations. The analysis emphasizes the importance of SWOT analysis for businesses to assess their market position and adapt their strategies. The report references sources that support the analysis, including articles on McDonald's relocation of its international base to the UK, a short SWOT analysis by Value Line, and a SWOT analysis from Strategic Management Insight.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF MCDONALD’S
McDonald’s is one of the swift growing and among the top-notch fast food giant
organization. Headquartered in United States, this organization has expanded its
reach across the globe and has captured the eyeballs of tonnes of its customers.
The taste and hygiene has always been the prime motive and clearly embarks
through its vision: “to be the best quick service restaurant”. The firm has come
into the whirlpool of attacks from EU tax regulators, which has made them shift
their base of non-US locations to United Kingdom (Chapman, 2016). The majority
of the employees working in this are from United Kingdom. Analysing the
organization and carrying ahead its SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and
Threats) analysis, this firm has marked its strength by having 36,525 stores
across the globe. This well defines that the company has set itself as a brand.
Steve Easterbook, CEO of the organization has very well defined that the income
streams comes from the various regions and countries; so the chances of risk &
loss does not exists. This is why McDonald’s has grown enormously in this fast
food sector. Setting itself as a brand crosses various dilemmas, the firm has less
of innovation in its product verticals which is making the market share gradually
decline. But the McDonald’s team with the leadership of Easterbook is
continuously making the efforts to cover up the weakness and eradicate it.
Moving ahead to the opportunities, the international expansion to various
countries and cities is still to be covered (Dalavagas, 2015). It has been serving
only a part of the world’s population, joint ventures with the different retailers
will publicize the organization in a more good way. With the change in the food
taste, innovation and flavor customization should be done. McDonalds stands
firm against its competitors because of the strong competitive edge it gives being
the matured firm (Jurevicius, 2017). But strength of competition is turning out
the biggest threat to the organization and health conscious customers are again
leading to loosing of customers. Lastly, the recent fluctuation in the currency has
drastically affected all organizations especially the fast-food companies.
The SWOT analysis is always necessary to be conducted in the
organization so as to review the market position. This aids the firm to
comprehend and alter the policies for the betterment of the organization. Taking
an upper hand on the strengths for eradicating weakness and opening up various

opportunities, which will help in detecting threats of the organization is the main
idea behind carrying SWOT analysis in the organization. This process is basically
done when a business is at its planning phase, if further if it has to be done – a
detailed analysis with the various other theories have also to be carried to know
the root cause of the problem. While carrying out such analysis, a lot of
information comes up but the prioritization to deal up with those issues has to
be set.
REFERENCES
Chapman, B. 2016. McDonald’s moves international base to UK after run-in with
EU tax regulators. [Online]. Available from: <
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mcdonald-s-moves-non-
us-base-to-uk-after-run-in-with-eu-tax-regulators-a7464106.html>. [Accessed
on 22 March 2017].
Dalavagas, L. 2015. McDonald’s Corp.: A Short SWOT Analysis. [Online]. Available
from: <
http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Highlights/McDonalds_Corp___A_Short_SWO
T_Analysis.aspx#.WNTswBJ97q0>. [Accessed on 22 March 2017].
Jurevicius, O. 2017. McDonald’s SWOT analysis. [Online]. Available from: <
https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/mcdonalds-
swot-analysis.html>. [Accessed on 22 March 2017].