Mc Donald Great Britain
McDonald’s Great Britain – Turn Around
New menus, improve services, advertising, opening new stores, closing others, and refurbishing others have propelled McDonald’s U.S. back into an active growth cycle after experiencing a slack period in 2003 and 2004 – U.S. sales have climbed for 40 straight months. Sales in Great Britain have not shown a similar movement. Sales at McDonald’s 1,235 British outlets have been slughish for years, and the reasons are numerous. New chain such as Yo! Sushi and Nando’s Chicken Restaurants, which features spicy Portuguese chicken, have outpaced McDonald’s. Operators such as U.S.-based Subway Restaurant are pulling in customers with fresh salads and sandwiches on foccacia bread. Starbucks has made McDonald’s outlets look sterile and out-of-date. And the 2001 scare over mad cow disease, along with concerns about rising obesity, make things worse.
In part because of lackluster performance in Great Britain, McDonald’s European operations- the second biggest market after America, responsible for about 30 percent of profits, have suffered. In 2005, European sales fell 0.7 percent, while U.S. sales grew 4.7 percent. Further, same-store sales for European restaurants open more than a year registeres a 3 percent decline.
To give you a flavor of what McDonald’s U.K. faces, here are observations about McDonald’s Britain.
COMMENTS FROM VARIOUS NEWS SOURCES
* A 24-year-old advertising sales representative in West London commented, “The McDonald’s where I work is really smart, with Internet access and everything, but I only go in there as a last resort.”
* “Twenty-three years ago, or thereabouts, I had my first McDonald’s. I was studying at Cambridge and a group of us drove to London to watch a football match. We stopped off at McDonald’s in the Strand and I experienced the joys of a Big Mac with fries, to go. It felt like the height of cool. I was from Cumbria, and McDonald’s, which came to this country only in 1974,
New menus, improve services, advertising, opening new stores, closing others, and refurbishing others have propelled McDonald’s U.S. back into an active growth cycle after experiencing a slack period in 2003 and 2004 – U.S. sales have climbed for 40 straight months. Sales in Great Britain have not shown a similar movement. Sales at McDonald’s 1,235 British outlets have been slughish for years, and the reasons are numerous. New chain such as Yo! Sushi and Nando’s Chicken Restaurants, which features spicy Portuguese chicken, have outpaced McDonald’s. Operators such as U.S.-based Subway Restaurant are pulling in customers with fresh salads and sandwiches on foccacia bread. Starbucks has made McDonald’s outlets look sterile and out-of-date. And the 2001 scare over mad cow disease, along with concerns about rising obesity, make things worse.
In part because of lackluster performance in Great Britain, McDonald’s European operations- the second biggest market after America, responsible for about 30 percent of profits, have suffered. In 2005, European sales fell 0.7 percent, while U.S. sales grew 4.7 percent. Further, same-store sales for European restaurants open more than a year registeres a 3 percent decline.
To give you a flavor of what McDonald’s U.K. faces, here are observations about McDonald’s Britain.
COMMENTS FROM VARIOUS NEWS SOURCES
* A 24-year-old advertising sales representative in West London commented, “The McDonald’s where I work is really smart, with Internet access and everything, but I only go in there as a last resort.”
* “Twenty-three years ago, or thereabouts, I had my first McDonald’s. I was studying at Cambridge and a group of us drove to London to watch a football match. We stopped off at McDonald’s in the Strand and I experienced the joys of a Big Mac with fries, to go. It felt like the height of cool. I was from Cumbria, and McDonald’s, which came to this country only in 1974,