Sustainable Management Futures - Research Paper Example

Sustainable Management Futures Brief of the company Global foodservice retailing is a good business especially in the midst of upward spiraling activities of globalisation in which local markets have become integrated globally. It is in this reason that McDonald’s has tried to create a strong market acceptance in a couple of decades not just because of its unique value proposition, but it is because of its strategic advantages over the other fast food chain restaurants. In 1994, McDonald’s was able to serve 22 million people worldwide (Lyon et al., 1994). This is one of the most important reasons why franchising a McDonald’s restaurant is a good business idea. The market has created a strong acceptance about its product and service offerings. Today, McDonald’s declares to be the leading global foodservice retailer (McDonald’s, 2011). There are more than 32,000 local restaurants in 117 countries which cater around 60 million people. As noticed, the number of people served increased more than twice from 1994. As a result, franchising strategy would make sense and in fact, 75% of McDonald’s restaurants globally are owned or operated by local business persons. McDonald’s believes that the world’s favorites among its product offerings are its world famous fries, big mac, quarter pounder, chicken mcnuggets, and egg mcmuffin. Just like any other existing big companies today, McDonald’s and its humble beginning is remarkable. Its founder Ray Kroc has successfully created a legacy by instituting a strong foundation leading to where McDonald’s is right now. The very goal of McDonald’s is to pass on the vision from generation to generation. As part of this, the firm continues to invest on talented executives in order to continue the spark that McDonald’s tries to establish in the market. As a result, McDonald’s continues to recreate its innovative strategic moves that continue to become a cut above the other in the competition. In fact, McDonald’s is willing to try another competitive move just to be able to make sense among its consumers. For instance, the increasing trend of customers becoming health aware is a market opportunity for McDonald’s at some point. This is a great opportunity for the firm to try to stimulate needs for another market segment. This only proves that McDonald’s has never closed its doors for probable innovation as far as the market trends continue to make a difference. Analysis of the context Politics Politics is about power (Williams, 1998). In the United Kingdom, power in the government comes from the executive power of the Monarch as the head of the state and the Prime Minister as the head of government. These two are interrelated positions in the UK government which eventually have corresponding impact on how the business operates in the country. The Monarch has the supreme power in the state because it has the capacity to dismiss and appoint a Prime Minister. In general, the entire business environment may depend on the overall management of the head of the state. However, the specific function lies on the head of the government. Thus, any instability of the business operation in the state may be addressed importantly directly towards the head of the government. Economic The global economic recession is another important aspect that strongly linked the entire business environment and specific firm’s operation. McDonald’s surely is in line with the business that produces product and service offerings that are to be consumed at a specific range of time. The global economic crisis was a doorway for various firms to move into recession (United Nations Settlements Programme, 2009). This is a specific indicator that business may not be working out well and various aspects should be taken into account such as employment, foreign direct investment, economic growth and more. In the midst of global economic downturn especially in the UK, McDonald’s surely has to struggle when it comes to hitting its maximum performance in all areas. The most specific would be its financial performance. This shows the fact that McDonald’s certainly is integrated with the world market and the global economic condition highly translates itself into the performance of the firm since it operates with a wide scope of international coverage. Social The increasing number of customers served by McDonald’s year after year is a significant indication that the market has continuously patronized both product and service offerings of the firm. Under the social context, McDonald’s tries to gain remarkable cultural acceptance from one country to another. For instance, in Beijing, its offerings continuously make a positive appeal to the taste of ordinary citizens in the country (Watson and Caldwell, 2005). Remarkably, McDonald’s in the UK has to continuously address this issue. However, the specific market trend and customer’s needs or requirements prevail. For instance, Subway is heard to have ousted McDonald’s because it considerably gained a public reputation as healthy fast-food chain (Kingsley, 2011). Thus, the bottom line is the integration of social context and the general business strategy in order to considerably gain certain level of market share. Technology Technology is remarkably one of the ways to speed up business transactions most especially in the UK. The advent of credit cards and online payment programs are doorways to fast business transactions. This is further strengthened by the incorporation of advanced information technology. In general, customers have the freedom to pay their orders online through fast online payment programs using credit cards, Paypal and other online payment system. This only signifies that business has increasingly advanced not just offering comfort for the customers, but it also ensures high speed business transactions among firms. McDonald’s certainly is never far from this and this is evident on its ‘McDonald’s Investor Online Services’ which particularly include electronic delivery (McDonald’s, 2011). Environment The UK is very specific with its environmental policy. Thus, part of McDonald’s corporate social responsibility is to offer a good program for the environment that is strongly beneficial for the community. In line with this, McDonald’s was able to come up with sustainable management programs covering its concerns on litter, waste, packaging and energy (McDonald’s, 2011). These are all associated with its program towards achieving a greener future. Legal Under the legal context, McDonald’s is certainly very careful about its franchising strategy. In fact, it has become one of the most active members of the British Franchise Association. This specifically ensures its full advantage in the competition while adhering closely to the legal context emancipated by the government of UK. Under the legal context, McDonald’s has become widely adept with it. This is shown by its capacity to have become one of the leading franchising companies in the UK for how many decades. Description of the ‘sustainable’ aspects of the company Under its corporate social responsibility, McDonald’s does not only aim to be the best family restaurant in the UK, but aggressive in its strategy to protect the environment at the local and global level. McDonald’s strongly believes that its business operations highly impact the environment. Thus, it aims to achieve sustainable and highly improved environment by focusing on the activities of its restaurant operations, purchasing, new restaurants, employees, communications and administrations (McDonald’s, 2011). Another part of the company’s corporate social responsibility program is its ‘Ronald McDonald House Charities’ which strongly help the families unite especially in their most stressful times. This program accommodates families with children in the hospital and hospices across UK. Under the ‘Open Farm’ program of McDonald’s in the UK, customers have the chance to visit its different farm suppliers. This program is to ensure promoting the top 17,500 British and Irish suppliers of top-quality ingredients for McDonald’s. This is not just a good marketing venue for its suppliers, but ultimately this is a good chance for consumers to know quality of raw materials that McDonald’s is trying to ensure for public consumption. In general, the entire corporate social responsibility of McDonald’s is tantamount to its marketing effort. In fact, it is the marketing activity by itself. As can be noted, the entire social responsibility is after of stimulating needs to go for positive consumer support for McDonald’s in the long run. After all, in the modern business activity, every firm tries to stimulate needs or demands for their product or service offerings (Kotler et al., 1999; Boone and Kurtz, 2006). Benchmark and good practice McDonald’s by itself is a case of benchmark and good practice. McDonald is a picture of modern and progressive brand. It is in this reason that various businesses in line or related with the said firm are trying to come up with basic ideas how they specifically create a significant market share in the future. As stated earlier, McDonald’s tries to achieve significant customer support by investing in its corporate social responsibility program. It is in line with this that it can successfully integrate its marketing strategy in order to ensure positive customer response. This is highly evident on how it tries to establish in its website the basic programs for the world prior to its goal to achieve sustainability. Sustainability in the case of McDonald’s is a case of creating customer’s trust, loyalty and full support. It may turn out that its endeavor to pursue corporate social responsibility is a specific case of enhancing its public reputation as an international company that is in fact part of the modern and progressive brand. McDonald’s is very concerned with strengthening its brand because it is through this that its market opportunity overflows. This brand recognition can be successfully implemented by integrating focus concern on corporate social responsibility. In fact, the very reason why corporate social responsibility has become an integral part of McDonald’s best practice is the opportunity it brings towards its sustainability. In fact, corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability have important shared relationship towards sustainable development (Idowu and Filho, 2009). Under marketing activity, this might be another point of view, but this only specifically emphasizes how to highlight brand in the market. This is essentially part of stimulating needs. Another good practice that McDonald’s strongly upholds is its franchising strategy. Unlike any other franchising companies that try to maximise global operation by making the most out of local business people’s know-how, McDonald’s tries to strengthen the capacity of its operation by creating a remarkable trademark that will essentially apply wherever part of the world. This is a source of competitive strength knowing that this is definitely integrated with the ability of the company to define its brand in the international market. Analysis Porter (1990) believes that competitive strategies such as overall cost leadership; differentiation and focus are general strategies that a firm can apply in order to gain significant competitive advantage. There are different strategies that need to be implemented and are actually core competencies of a firm (Hoskisson et al., 2008). These core competencies when successfully practiced are significant sources of the firm’s sustainable development. Sustainability therefore is the bottom line of finding for competitive strategies. Part of Porter’s idea of competitive advantage is innovation. Under McDonald’s ability to gain sustainability is its ability to innovate. For instance, the current demand in the market is to go for more healthy foods with less fat and calories. In line with this, McDonald’s tries to come up with product offering with significantly lower fat and calories. This only shows that McDonald’s is after of gaining sustainability of which the bottom line is to cater specific market segments that are after of product offerings with less amount of serving for fats and calories. There are new market entrants in the food chain restaurants and these are significant competitors of McDonald’s. Under this circumstance, McDonald’s has to create significant market share and part of its competitive strategy for its sustainable development is its ability to strengthen its brand. This is the reason why investing in its sustainable advantage is a need for McDonald. In the first place, its ability to influence the taste of customers has something to do with the specific strength of its brand. As much as possible, McDonald’s has to constantly satisfy customers and continue to differentiate its product and service offerings. This is to ensure that its competitors and even the new market entrants have to be constantly ousted in the competition. However, this is not usually the case because customers’ needs are constantly changing due to the fact that marketers continue to change their perception of needs. As mentioned earlier, marketers continuously stimulate the need for their offerings. Thus, it is in line with this that sustainability of customers’ acceptance of a specific offering is a must. It is in line with this that McDonald’s has to invest in market research activities so as not just to address the needs of the consumers but innovate possibilities. Another important impact of applying sustainability in the case of McDonald’s in the UK is the opportunity to create strong customer’s trust and loyalty. This is evident on certain program of the company under its corporate social responsibility. McDonald’s is actually good at stimulating needs for its brand that is why it lasted for decades and until at present has become one of the leading brands of fast food chain restaurants in the world. The issue is not just about reinventing taste or innovation but absolutely it is how the company creates such opportunity to be widely accepted in the market. McDonald’s encourages cooperation among the people as it tries to believe in the fact that it has a remarkable potential to influence the world. Thus, its corporate social responsibility. The impact of its corporate social responsibility on its entire global operation not just in the UK is the ability to promote its entire brand and business operation. McDonald’s is not just trying to impart the idea of reliability when it comes to good-tasting products but the opportunity to go beyond the level of acquiring more customers. It expands into a company with dedicated response to some other socio-cultural needs. Recommendations McDonald’s is a promising company that is very dynamic to respond to the prevailing needs in the market. It is also a company that positively explores remarkable potential to stimulate needs and further enhance the strength of its brand. It is in line with this that sustainability issue has to be widely integrated with the entire business operation of McDonald’s in order to learn more about the modern approach of sustainable development. McDonald’s has discovered specific moves towards sustainable development that may actually deviate or enhance the contemporary theories of sustainability. Conclusions As discussed in this paper, sustainability is a very important concept that every firm needs to understand. Sustainability needs to be highlighted among companies such as McDonald’s that tries to operate in the global context. In particular, operations in the global setting are very complex considering that there are various aspects in the business environment that needs to be taken into account. McDonald’s by itself is a company that is a specific case of benchmark and good practice. In detail, the company always explores new possibilities in order to be a cut above the other. This is specifically on its case considering that it has to be consistent in everything that is why it has to remarkably result to sustainability options. References Boone, L. E., and Kurtz, D. L. (2006) Contemporary Marketing. 12th ed. USA: South-Western. Hoskisson, R. E., Hitt, M. A.,and Ireland, R. D. (2008) Competing for advantage. Ohio: Cengage Learning. Idowu, S. O., and Filho, W. L. (2009) Global Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility. London: Springer. Kingsley, P. 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