Ray Kroc, Mcdonald’s, and the Fast-Food Industry
Introduction
This assignment first gives an insight to McDonald’s corporation history and current situation. Then it describes the management features that are inherited from the founder, Ray Kroc and how the performance is impacted by the founder.
I. An Introduction to McDonald’s Corporation
McDonald’s holds the biggest name in the world’s fast food industry today. Since it’s foundation in 1954, McDonald’s has satisfied the customers with its main product, hamburger. With having more than 35,000 restaurants located in US, Europe, Canada, Asia Pacific, Meddle East and Latin America; it serves 52 million customers daily (McDonald’s 2006 Annual Report, 2007).
1954 was the year that reshaped the concepts of fast food industry. Fifty two year old milk shake salesman, Ray Kroc envisioned the idea of creating a hamburger product and delivering it to customers in very short time; when he visited his client McDonald’s. By that time, McDonald brothers were operating a restaurant which sold burger, French fries and milk shakes and was efficient but was limited to small scale operation. Kroc made a deal with McDonald brothers to sell McDonald’s franchises for a lower price.
He started duplicating the McDonald brothers’ single store in 1955 and introduced discipline to it. He took great pain to introduce a system to produced same quality hamburgers with fast delivery mechanism that can be replicate easily while maintaining the quality and standards. By 1960, there were more than 200 outlets around the country. Ray Kroc used different advertising methods at different levels to make a famous brand name. With the great success and saturation of the local market, in 1970, McDonald’s started an energetic push to make McDonald’s a global presence.
Today, most of the restaurants out of 35,000 located in more than 100 countries are operated as franchises and affiliates. “More than 70% of McDonald 's restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local
This assignment first gives an insight to McDonald’s corporation history and current situation. Then it describes the management features that are inherited from the founder, Ray Kroc and how the performance is impacted by the founder.
I. An Introduction to McDonald’s Corporation
McDonald’s holds the biggest name in the world’s fast food industry today. Since it’s foundation in 1954, McDonald’s has satisfied the customers with its main product, hamburger. With having more than 35,000 restaurants located in US, Europe, Canada, Asia Pacific, Meddle East and Latin America; it serves 52 million customers daily (McDonald’s 2006 Annual Report, 2007).
1954 was the year that reshaped the concepts of fast food industry. Fifty two year old milk shake salesman, Ray Kroc envisioned the idea of creating a hamburger product and delivering it to customers in very short time; when he visited his client McDonald’s. By that time, McDonald brothers were operating a restaurant which sold burger, French fries and milk shakes and was efficient but was limited to small scale operation. Kroc made a deal with McDonald brothers to sell McDonald’s franchises for a lower price.
He started duplicating the McDonald brothers’ single store in 1955 and introduced discipline to it. He took great pain to introduce a system to produced same quality hamburgers with fast delivery mechanism that can be replicate easily while maintaining the quality and standards. By 1960, there were more than 200 outlets around the country. Ray Kroc used different advertising methods at different levels to make a famous brand name. With the great success and saturation of the local market, in 1970, McDonald’s started an energetic push to make McDonald’s a global presence.
Today, most of the restaurants out of 35,000 located in more than 100 countries are operated as franchises and affiliates. “More than 70% of McDonald 's restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local
References: Retrieved September 27, 2007 from http://www.shareholder.com/visitors/dynamicdoc/document.cfm?documentid=1545&companyid=MCD McDonald’s Corporation, McDonald 's History Retrieved September 27, 2007 from http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about/mcd_history_pg1.html McDonald 's Corp: Company Description Retrieved September 28, 2007 from Retrieved September 28, 2007 from http://www.beefmagazine.com