Standardizing Strategies for Marketing Mix in US and UK in McDonald's - Research Paper Example

The fast-food industry is spreading throughout the world in a multidimensional way. The fast-food culture is modifying local tastes, preferences and lifestyles (Creswell 2003). In the last two decades, there has been a magnanimous growth of the industry reaching out to countries like China and India where the cultures are diverse and different from the western lifestyle (Calder et al. 1981, pp.1997-200). This research explores how the US-based fast-food chain McDonald's was able to capture such markets.

It aims to study which features had to be changed and to what extent so that the products may be appealing to culturally enriched countries like India and China. With the saturation of the US market and a downward trend in sales, McDonald's opted to explore new markets to survive. In order to study the strategic changes McDonald's has made in its mix, this research has been conducted on the manager from 4 different countries namely US, UK, India and China. A questionnaire research was conducted on them which revealed the contrasting differences in the strategies employed by McDonald's in all these countries.

In today’s globalised world cultures, religions, language and ethics etc are interacting with each other as distances shorten. Tastes and preferences vary tremendously from country to country as the culture differs (Malhotra and Birks 2000). The fast-food industry is facing the problem of having to alter their products and services to suit the changing needs of the consumers.