Notes: One-inch margins on all sides. Times Roman text (12 pt.). Single line spacing, Blank lines only for paragraph separations. Separate Title page and Cited References page, MINIMUM of four full discussion (body) pages. Minimum means more is expected. See Syllabus 3.2 Individual Project for a complete discussion and requirements. Sample Paper Reference Only This paper received an B+ grade based on the rubrics noted in the Syllabus 3.2 There are four and one-half discussion (body) pages in this specific document. McDonald's Globalization Franchising Strategy By Past Excellent Student December X, 201X Introduction: McDonald’s Origin and Background “The success of McDonald's is the business equivalent of the American Dream” (Home, 1). Richard and Maurice McDonald, the founding brothers of McDonald’s, had a vision in their mind from the beginning. At first in 1940, they came up with the idea to completely move their father’s food stand into a completely new building and renamed it from “The Airdrome” to “McDonald’s Bar-B-Que” with twenty-five items listed on the menu. In October of 1948, after running their restaurant for a few years, they realized that most of their profits were from the hamburgers compared to their other menu items, therefore, they closed down this restaurant to open a more streamline restaurant with a simple menu of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, potato chips, coffee, soft drinks, and apple pie. After a year, they swapped the apple pie and potato chips with milkshakes and French fries. Eventually after continual improvement, they joined up with Ray Kroc, a seller of Prince Castle brand Multimixer Milkshake Machines, where the McDonald brothers were using eight of his machines, so Kroc went to check out their restaurant. After visiting, Kroc believed in them and gave them the idea franchise their restaurants throughout the country. They were skeptical at first but eventually agreed with it and McDonald’s first franchise opened in Illinois in 1955. Eventually, Kroc bought out the McDonald brother for 2.7 million dollars and then the fast food restaurant really began to take off. Kroc realized he needed to create an image for the restaurant that would make it stand out compared to others. The main two aspects that McDonald’s adopted early on that made the chain restaurant stand out is the famous double arch “M” was created along with assigning Ronald McDonald to be the face for the restaurant. Nowadays, it does not matter where you are visiting a McDonalds because it will be a very similar experience regardless of the location. With that being said, that highlights the vision of Ray Kroc, which helps with their strategic approach and their global franchising for continuous success and growth within their fast food chain. McDonald’s Growth There are thousands of McDonald restaurants around the world, and they are still continuing to grow, which makes them one of the top franchising companies in the world. When Kr ...

1. Notes: One-inch margins on all sides. Times Roman text (12
pt.). Single line spacing,
Blank lines only for paragraph separations. Separate Title page
and Cited References page, MINIMUM of four full discussion
(body) pages. Minimum means more is expected.
See Syllabus 3.2 Individual Project for a complete discussion
and requirements.
Sample Paper Reference Only
This paper received an B+ grade based on the rubrics noted in
the Syllabus 3.2
There are four and one-half discussion (body) pages in this
specific document.
McDonald's Globalization Franchising Strategy
By Past Excellent Student
December X, 201X
Introduction: McDonald’s Origin and Background
“The success of McDonald's is the business equivalent of the
American Dream” (Home, 1). Richard and Maurice McDonald,
the founding brothers of McDonald’s, had a vision in their mind
from the beginning. At first in 1940, they came up with the
idea to completely move their father’s food stand into a
completely new building and renamed it from “The Airdrome”
to “McDonald’s Bar-B-Que” with twenty-five items listed on
the menu. In October of 1948, after running their restaurant for
a few years, they realized that most of their profits were from
the hamburgers compared to their other menu items, therefore,

2. they closed down this restaurant to open a more streamline
restaurant with a simple menu of hamburgers, cheeseburgers,
potato chips, coffee, soft drinks, and apple pie. After a year,
they swapped the apple pie and potato chips with milkshakes
and French fries. Eventually after continual improvement, they
joined up with Ray Kroc, a seller of Prince Castle brand
Multimixer Milkshake Machines, where the McDonald brothers
were using eight of his machines, so Kroc went to check out
their restaurant.
After visiting, Kroc believed in them and gave them the idea
franchise their restaurants throughout the country. They were
skeptical at first but eventually agreed with it and McDonald’s
first franchise opened in Illinois in 1955. Eventually, Kroc
bought out the McDonald brother for 2.7 million dollars and
then the fast food restaurant really began to take off. Kroc
realized he needed to create an image for the restaurant that
would make it stand out compared to others. The main two
aspects that McDonald’s adopted early on that made the chain
restaurant stand out is the famous double arch “M” was created
along with assigning Ronald McDonald to be the face for the
restaurant. Nowadays, it does not matter where you are visiting
a McDonalds because it will be a very similar experience
regardless of the location. With that being said, that highlights
the vision of Ray Kroc, which helps with their strategic
approach and their global franchising for continuous success
and growth within their fast food chain.
McDonald’s Growth
There are thousands of McDonald restaurants around the world,
and they are still continuing to grow, which makes them one of
the top franchising companies in the world. When Kroc
purchased McDonalds, he had a real vision of how he wanted it
to succeed and he set out to do so. According to the McDonald’s
website, Kroc wanted to open 1,000 locations in the United

3. States, and in 1967, he successfully did so. McDonald’s first
went global by opening restaurants in Canada and Puerto Rico.
According to McDonald’s corporate website, they have more
than 36,000 restaurants in over 100 countries. Also from the
website, the most recent opening was in Kazakhstan in
2016McDonald’s continual improvements and innovation will
help them to continue to grow and branch out to new locations.
One of the main reasons that they are successful at expanding to
new locations and cultures is how they focus on local
entrepreneurs around the world. By doing this, it helps them to
determine how they want to set up each McDonald’s that will
best fit that culture but to still keep it similar to the rest of the
restaurants around the globe. The entrepreneur of each franchise
is responsible for adapting and adjusting the improvements
whether it be the menu, appearance, price, and operations to
make sure that restaurant will be successful in that location.
“We know the most meaningful way to grow the business and
create value for all of our stakeholders is by serving more
customers more often. That’s why we’re focused on giving
customers what they really want: hot, delicious food served
quickly – with an overall experience and value for their money
that meets their rising expectations” (Our Growth Strategy, 2).
They have three key pillars that they focus on to continue to
grow which are, retain, regain, and convert. McDonald’s will
continue to grow with their velocity growth plan to make their
chain more up to date with their customer’s requests and needs.
McDonald’s Globalization Strategy and Franchising
Moving an organization to a global market is a big step
with many strategic considerations and decision-making skills.
When it comes to making a franchise successful, it comes with
big ups and downs with trial and error. One has to be willing to
take risks to figure out what really works the best for a business
and Ray Kroc ended up figuring out just what to do with
McDonald’s. “To achieve this, he chose a unique path:

4. persuading both franchisees and suppliers to buy into his vision,
working not for McDonald’s but for themselves, together with
McDonald’s. He promoted the slogan, “In business for yourself,
but not by yourself” (Our History, 4). Kroc based his
philosophy off of the simple principle known as the three-
legged barstool. The first leg of the barstool is the franchisees
for McDonald’s, the second leg represents McDonald’s
suppliers, and lastly, the third makes up the McDonald’s
employees.
“One of the main reasons McDonald’s is able to globalize so
well is with a franchise business
model that allows its franchisee-members, management and
shareholders to share the risks and rewards from the discovery
and exploitation of new business opportunities—McDonald’s
model has become the norm for other franchise organizations”
(Mourdoukoutas, 2). The next way they were able to achieve
globalization and continue to do so successfully was due to
their ability to adapt and innovate to the new locations. The
franchisee managers are able to come up with new and fresh
products along with services to address the needs of a
widespread and diverse
consumer markets, which are shaped by the demographic region,
economy, and the local factors that are focused on in that area.
Globalization for McDonald’s means that they embrace and
engage the different cultures while at the same time holding on
to a strong enough brand to be immediately identifiable. As
mentioned above, when McDonald’s chose to begin franchising,
it really opened up a lot of doors for them to pursue, this has
allowed them to globalize so well. To become a franchisee of
McDonalds, you must require certain qualities needed before
you can apply to become an owner of a franchise.
McDonald’s Globalization Effect on Menus

5. As one would expect when it comes to globalizing a restaurant,
it comes with adaptation to different cultures to make it
successful there. Since McDonald’s serves food, when it comes
to opening a new franchise in a foreign country, they must
research into the culture to see what some of the well-known
foods are so in return they can come up with a menu that will be
enjoyed by that community, but at the same time have some of
their signature items on the menu as well. By doing this, that
chain restaurant can continue to thrive and succeed. They not
only do this to keep that franchise afloat, but they also must
look into the cultures to keep respect to their cultural traditions.
For example, in India, the Hindu country, they do not believe in
eating pork, therefore, no franchise in that country will serve
pork due to wanting to respect them and their beliefs. This can
greatly impact McDonald’s business strategy because if
managers do not do appropriate research for certain local
traditions, they could make a disrespectful image and in return
would negatively impact McDonald’s reputation.
As mentioned above, although they must change the menu
for certain countries, they still try to stay true and represent
their famous image of a fast food chain, which is to sell food
like the popular burgers and fries. After researching
international menus, they were definitely able to customize
different burgers for different countries and cultures and keep
that “fast food image”. There were many that seemed to really
fit each culture but still maintain the burger image which I
found really interesting. In Japan they came up with the “Ebi
Filet-O Shrimp Burger”, with the name coming from a famous
Japanese model who helped promote the release of the new
burger, which later became McDonald’s Japan popular burger of
choice.
Next in Germany, they created the McNürnburger with the
infamous German food which is a bratwurst, they named this
burger after a former German soccer star. McDonald’s Cost

6. Rica offers the McPinto Deluxe burger, which includes rice,
beans, eggs, plantains, and sour cream to accommodate to the
Spanish style of food that is eaten there. After listing some
popular burgers in certain areas it is fairly obvious that they
keep their name tied into the popular items. It is a very smart
strategy to start the name of popular menu items with the “Mc”.
It is a cheap way to advertise their food brand and an easy way
for customers to remember where they can go to get it with the
simple added prefix.
McDonald’s Global Appearances
McDonald’s does like to stick with tradition and consistency
when it comes to opening up new stores around the world.
There are a few main aspects that they try to keep the same for
each franchise to advertise their popular brand name to be
easily recognized. The most easily recognizable symbol that
represents McDonald’s is there use of the golden arches and
that is one that they definitely try to keep with each franchise.
They do this because when driving and you look up at different
signs that symbol definitely sticks out the most and grabs
customer’s attention. Next, they really like their traditional and
symbolic color scheme of yellow and red. They do this because
Ray Kroc’s vision of keeping each franchise to keep the
traditional experience of the original McDonald’s so that they
can continue to build their brand name/image. “It doesn't
matter if you're visiting a McDonald's in California or
Connecticut, America or Australia – you're going to have a
similar experience wherever you are” (Home, 3).
This quote really hits the nail on the head with how consistent
Ray Kroc wanted all the franchises to be the same, reiterating
the consistency factor that they keep within their chain. By
keeping this consistency, it helps the customer’s able to know
what to expect from the McDonald’s and it helps with their
advertising by keeping similar looks between the McDonald

7. restaurants. One of McDonald’s main goals is to keep their
strong brand name and they do this by keeping a distinct
appearance for their image along with the obvious fast food
service at a cheap price.
McDonald’s likes to keep their name brand looks, but as a
company globalizes there will be customization of the
appearance to help shape the culture and stand out due to the
looks being much different than the rest. One main place that a
McDonald’s adapted its looks to fit more into the culture was in
Rome. This is perhaps one of their most upgraded restaurants
that is filled with marble and mosaics becoming a tourist
attraction in of itself. “Located next to the Spanish Steps and
entered through a Perugina Baci chocolate shop, the restaurant
tries to blend into its very European surroundings, and
succeeds” (Pantaleo, 4). Rome is a very elegant country and the
design for this McDonald’s as genius along with the location.
This way it is in a central spot to attract a lot of tourists and
they also created it as a tourist location by designing it
completely different from their typical design. Although
McDonald’s typically likes to keep the restaurants consistent
and similar in looks, it can be beneficial to have a few locations
with a stand out design to attract more customers due to how
different it is that what most customers expect it to be, making
people more curious.
McDonald’s global franchise strategy helps their popular brand
image hold strong against its competitors with the help of this
consistent approach. Even through some of these minor
adjustments that they make in these unique restaurants, it only
helps their image due to the different design in few places
making it more attractive. Many other globalized companies
will significantly alter their looks to fit into each culture
perfectly and not preserving any consistency making it hard for
customers to distinguish a legitimate brand image and that is
definitely a big advantage for McDonald’s because the similar
appearance builds their brand image and allows them to be

8. successful globally.
McDonald’s Global Operations
The operational aspect for McDonald’s as they went global
really did not change. They still wanted to focus on the main
goal of McDonald’s and that is fast service with cheap prices.
It all started from the beginning with the McDonald brother
deciding that the food assembly line would be the fastest and
most efficient way to serve customers and that is still what is
being used today. This is one factor that does not need to be
changed with culture to allow it to be successful. This assembly
line service is also a big contributing factor to what allowed
them to grow as rapidly as they did because it created their fast
service. This really helps with their globalization because there
is no need for research and development on a new service
system. They can keep this and still be just as successful
globally because one of the main concerns for customers is fast
service.
The most recent technological development that aided in their
fast customer service is the kiosk. This allows the customer to
skip the middle man of the cashier and simply type their own
order in on the kiosk and is sent directly to the order board
through the computer system. As mentioned above, fast service
is their main goal to maintain, their system of operation does
not need adjusted to be able to continue to globalize due to the
simplicity and success of their original and current approach.
McDonald’s Global Pricing
As a company begins to globalize, you can expect the prices to
vary between each country due to different availability to
certain products. Which relates to McDonald’s because their
pricing strategy is based on what is available on the menu and
what ingredients are needed for each item listed. They tend to

9. go by their specific strategy called the Big Mac Index to
compare their prices. This pricing method is used because the
Big Mac is listed on all menus across the world because this is
their famous item that helps to maintain their brand recognition.
This is helpful mostly, except in the fact that some of the
ingredients are altered in the Big Mac due to different cultures
and their beliefs. Every economy in the world is at a different
point, the prices will tend to vary and be inconsistent.
The cheapest Big Mac out there today is in Ukraine being priced
at $1.67 US dollars. This exemplifies how the Ukraine economy
undervalues their currency. The most expensive Big Mac is in
Switzerland and it is priced at a whopping $6.82 US dollars.
Switzerland has relatively a higher standard of living which
makes their economy superior and everything there will seem to
be more expensive. The main reason for carrying prices mostly
relates to the availability and access of each ingredient. If the
ingredients are scarce or hard to access in a certain country,
then as one can assume that Big Mac will be priced much higher
than a country that has an abundance of the certain ingredients
and can be accessed very easily. This affects McDonald’s
global franchising strategy because they need to consider these
different factors to allow them to understand what the average
price would be at certain locations around the world. The Big
Mac index will never be universal due to the constant changing
prices making this a big factor when deciding where to consider
a new franchise to pop up.
Conclusion
After researching McDonald’s can start up a new franchise
in other countries due to globalization and their different
strategies that they go by to globalize. It is safe to say that they
will continue to be very successful and will continue to grow
and expand to new locations. For them to be successful in a
globalized world requires proper planning and decision-making

10. to overcome all the potential negative impacts that they could
face. They are able to come up with the best strategies for each
location through their initial strategy, menu, operation system,
and pricing as their main factors. Also, with such a strong
foundation and success that they have gained from branching
out to new foreign areas, they will only continue to learn and
improve to reach new areas where they thought they could never
make it. The globalization of McDonald’s has impacted them
positively by being able to successfully overcome all the
obstacles which in return increases their reputation all over the
world.
References
“Home.” Baskin Robbins Franchise Cost & Fee, Baskin Robbins
FDD & Franchise Information FranchiseDirect.com,
www.franchisedirect.com/information/markettrendsfactsaboutfr
anchising/thesuccessofmcdonalds/8/1111/.
Mourdoukoutas, Panos. “McDonald's Winning Strategy, At
Home And Abroad.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 20 Apr. 2012,
www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2012/04/20/mcdona
lds-winning-strategy-at-home-and-abroad/#585cb80f2a92.
“Our Growth Strategy.” Our People and Communities |
McDonald's, corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/about-us/our-
growth-strategy.html.
“OUR HISTORY.” Our History: Ray Kroc & The McDonald's
Brothers | McDonald's, www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-
us/our-history.html.
Pantaleo, Rosemary, and TheDailyMeal.com. “10 Coolest
McDonald's around the World.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite
Information Network, 3 Mar. 2013,
www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2013/03/02/10-

11. coolest-mcdonalds-around-the-world/1957761/.