Intercultural management: Mc Donald's case

Résumé du document

The McDonald's company is a multinational firm well known in the world. The main activity of the company is to sell food quickly, what we call fast food. Nowadays, it has more than 30,000 franchises under the McDonald's brand, located in more than 120 countries. Born in the United States after the crisis of 1929, it is just in the 50s that the company has considerably developed its activity in the domestic market, thanks to the arrival of the millionaire Ray Kroc. Then, since the seventies, the firm launches its restaurants and its famous logo all around the world, while starting with the big cities of the Western world. Today, McDonald's is one of the most known brands in the world, with Wall Mart, Google and Facebook among others (It is important to underline the fact that in 1996, MacDonald's has dethrone Coca-Cola.).
This firm is the perfect example of an international success.

In spite of some economic slumps, it continues to have excellent turnovers and its exponential growth. Indeed, the international character of McDonald's is flagrant because more than a half of its global turnover is made abroad and today, for one restaurant which opens in the United States, four are opened overseas (per day). Commonly, a restaurant opens each three hours in the world. Obviously, the famous brand knew to make profit from the democratization and expansion of the American culture, because of its origins first, and then because McDonald is one of the symbol who has made that. But it is also the logic and the global organization of the company which allowed this great success. Indeed, the standard model of this company (the system which concerns the McDonald's restaurant such as one that we can find in the United States) is easily exportable and we can establish restaurants everywhere easily in spite of the cultural differences.

Extraits

[...] the restaurant, the geographical localization, the logo). The company has made every thing that it can. They have adapted their strategies to local behaviors, and local tastes. In Muslim countries, in Asian countries, they have more or less succeeded. Adapting their product strategy was really good, because tastes are different between 2 countries. That is why they have general products (like the Big Mac, the Mac Bacon for example), and in numerous countries, they have local products. They must keep their main international strategy when they export their concept in foreign countries. [...]

[...] Many restaurants were closed because of this problem, and McDonald's has not a good reputation about that. Adding to that, and linked with the hygiene control, we have the problem concerning the Halal food in Muslim countries. There is an ethical problem concerning this kind of food. Controls must be very strict, because it is a belief. McDonald's must give a strong guarantee to these consumers, because if there is a problem, just one, it could be a great loss in terms of markets, clients, market shares and notoriety. [...]

[...] Campaign in France for the sports, and insist on the fact that children must do some sports. [...]

[...] Then, we will focus on the differences cultures. We will see and understand how McDonald's is successful to surmount the cultural obstacle in its expansion, by adopting a strategy as its likes itself to be defined when the company adopts the local slogan “think local, act global”. Finally, we will concentrate our study on the actual problems that the company can meet when there is an intercultural conflict, in particular in the case of the strike of the restaurant of Strasbourg - Denis Saint in France. [...]

[...] Here is the example of a McDonald's restaurant in Paris. We will see how it was difficult for the firm to overcome the problem, for what reasons the conflict began and all the different issues. This conflict began at the end of 2001 in a Parisian McDonald's restaurant, because of the decision taken by the direction of this McDonald's franchise to lay off Tino Fortunat, the director assistant, who was considered as too near to the employees and the violation by Mac Donald of the protocol of end of strike signed the previous year. [...]