MCDONALD'S INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY

McDonald's International Strategy

McDonald's International Strategy

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the international strategies with the underlying real life examples of McDonald's fast-food restaurants in Australia. In other words, the aim is to discuss McDonald's international channel, the way this fast-food restaurant gets its products to the market. Nonetheless, this paper will demonstrate that McDonald's international strategy is effective in many cultures. In fact, McDonald's is the leading international fast-food service retailer, with more than 30,000 local restaurants serving nearly 46 million people each day in 121 different countries. Approximately 80 percent of all McDonald's restaurants are owned internationally and operated by independent franchisors. The costs of the building or leasing facilities are a major factor on the retailer's profits. Thus, site locations decisions are among the most important the retailer make (Kotler, et al., 2001).

Discussion

McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Australia in December 1971. Today there are more than 690 restaurants throughout Australia and serving in excess of one million customers per day and employing over 55,000 staff. Therefore, you can find them everywhere in Australia, where some of the McDonald's are open 24 hours per day which satisfy people's needs and wants, especially for exists their hunger. This kind of distribution strategy is called "intensive distribution", means marking the product available for sale through all possible channels of distribution. In addition, this strategy must be designed to reach the consumer wants at anytime and anywhere.

Furthermore, to quote Kotler, a franchise organization is "a contractual vertical marketing network in which a channel member called a franchisor links several stages in production-distribution process"( Kotler et al., 2001 86). McDonald's has adopted the service-firm-sponsored retailer franchise network, in which a service firm licenses a network of retailers to bring its service to consumers (Kotler, et ...