Business Plan
Fast food restaurants have developed their effective market image in very short period of time. The invention of fast food items relates with the western part of the globe but now it is being the favourable item across the globe. McDonald’s is one of the fast food restaurant chains and it is an American hamburger outlet which has developed their market image in most of the countries across the globe. McDonald’s is planning to introduce some new concept in relation to the food items in the target market so that their market share in the competitive market could be enhanced. For evaluating outcomes in relevance with this report, competitive analysis will be done to analyse the strategies used by the primary competitors of McDonald’s which could affect the current position of the organization in the competitive business environment. Apart from this, methods for food production, menu budgeting, pricing techniques, sales promotion, training, customer service, etc. will also be covered under this report for analysing the effectiveness of the business plan introduced in the target market.
Aim of McDonald’s
McDonald’s is planning to introduce the breakfast meal and under that meal, all the healthy items will be included which can boost up the energy level of their consumers. Breakfast is very crucial to start a healthy day. It boosts up the energy level of the people many famous doctors have also suggested that breakfast should not be skipped as well as healthy items must be consumed in the breakfast. In order to attract the consumers, McDonald’s has planned to introduce a special breakfast meal under which a healthy wrap will be included which will be made of egg and wheat grains. Apart from the wrap, choice will be given to the consumers to select one item from potato fries and potato wedges. And amongst the Hot Coffee and the mix fruit juice, consumer can select any one item as per their choice. A mixture of all these three items will be included in the breakfast meal and it will provide sufficient energy which is required to gain from the breakfast. The specialty of this meal will be that it will be available from 9.00 AM till the 11.00 AM and then the consumers can order any item from the menu (Mohammed, Rashid & Tahir, 2014).
Introducing this type of food items in the fast food industry will help the organization to gain adequate competitive advantage in the target market. Apart from the competitive advantage, organization will be able to meet its desired objectives and goal with the introduction of the new concept of fast food in the market (Klein, 2016).
Evaluation and Competition
Evaluation and Competition
Fast Food industry has a great competition across the globe. There are numerous companies available in this industry and McDonald’s is one of those brands which have their market presence in most parts of the globe. Subway, KFC, Burger King, etc. are the primary competitors of McDonald’s in the international market. KFC is famous for serving fried chicken, burgers, etc. Subway has the unique range of vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian burgers and the Burger King is also famous for delivering unique range of burgers, potato fries, etc. In order to gain the competitive advantage, organization needs to adopt some adequate strategies through the organization could be able to develop its unique image in the target market (Kim & Hyun, 2011).
McDonald’s have unique and trained staffs which helps them to be unique in the competitive fast food industry. Apart from this, their promotional campaigns and the design of their promotional strategies are also provided them a competitive advantage. They are present in more than 100 countries across the globe and along with this, their secret formula to produce delicious burgers, ingredients used to produce those burgers, etc. are not revealed yet (Johnston & Bate, 2013).
Product Concept, development, and marketing
The basic concept of launching the breakfast meal is to enhance their market presence and the market share in the fast food industry. Breakfast meal is launched to provide a healthy breakfast to its consumers and this will increase the positive image of the organization amongst the consumers (Helms & Nixon, 2010).
In terms of marketing and development of the new concept of meal, McDonald’s will use the attractive and meaningful advertisement content through which adequate demand could be obtained for the particular meal. Along with the unique idea of advertisement content, organization could also use their existing advertisement and promotional mediums for marketing the new meal introduced with the purpose of enhancing the demand for the new product in the target market (Gregor & Hevner, 2013).
Consumer Trends
Nowadays, consumers have shifted towards the healthy food products while still there are certain age group audience which is still addicted towards the fast food items. In order to change the consumer’s perception, organization has invented the idea of introducing healthy breakfast meal. With the consumption of healthy breakfast meal, McDonald’s will be able to make positive attitude for fast food industry. Along with these strategies, feedbacks and surveys techniques can also be included in the business plan of the McDonald’s in order to promote the healthy breakfast meal in the target market. Apart from this, organization could also use positive taglines and the positive promotional strategies through which consumer’s perception could be changed for the McDonald’s (Greer & Ferguson, 2011).
Product Concept, development, and marketing
Branding and Theming
McDonald’s does not need to put much effort in relevance with the branding of the new meal to be launched in the target market. This is due to the huge contribution of the McDonald’s towards the fast food industry. They have built effective and efficient goodwill in the competitive business environment. Hence, branding will be automatically done for the new breakfast meal. Apart from this, theme of the meal will include the attractive pictures and designs of healthy food items. Healthy slogans could also be used in terms of making the theme of the new meal more attractive and effective (Fischer, et. al., 2011).
Food production methods
For producing fresh and healthy breakfast meal, McDonald’s needs to adopt some effective strategies through which consumers can get their breakfast meal within short period of time. Raw materials used for making the egg wraps, fries, nudges, coffee, and juices will be stored in an effective place so that their quality and freshness could be preserved. These are the main components of healthy breakfast meal and in order to meet the objectives of the organization, appropriate and effective techniques will be used to make finished items within certain period of time so that consumers do not need to wait for getting their order (Czepiel & Kerin, 2012).
Service and Quality
McDonald’s is known for delivering adequate quality products and this is the major reason for their effective goodwill in more than 100 countries across the globe. Apart from delivering adequate qualitative products, they are also known for their instant service qualities. For improving their service, McDonald’s uses various techniques such as digitalised system for taking and delivering the order to the consumers. This helps the consumers to get their ordered items instantaneously with satisfactory and adequate quality. Quality measures prescribed by the local government of every country and the quality measures adopted by the McDonald’s have quite a similar impact. McDonald’s have developed their quality measures in order to develop and maintain centralised controlling system over all the outlets present in the international as well as in domestic market (Cornelissen & Cornelissen, 2017).
Apart from the quality measures adopted for maintaining the food quality as well as to deliver adequate qualitative products to its consumers, McDonald’s also uses trending marketing strategies for attracting the consumer’s interest towards the organization. They have made their kitchen area open to maintain the transparency in relevance with the ingredients and the manufacturing methods used for making the finished goods. Consumers can also visit the kitchen area after taking the permission from the authorised person available in the outlet of the McDonald’s and this rule applies to all its authorised stores across the globe (Brandt, Cazzaniga & Hann, 2011).
Consumer Trends
Menu costing and budgeting is another crucial step in terms of developing the demand for new range of meals in the target market. For this, McDonald’s have segregated its menu in two parts, one is for breakfast meals and another one is for the rest of the day. Menu for breakfast will remain same and the items in the breakfast meal will be available for only the selected time period. Whereas other items will be available for rest whole day until the closing time of the outlets (Armstrong, et. al., 2015).
Budgeting is the term which is used to segregate the various types of future costs which will be incurred for making and promoting the newly launched products on the basis of budget allocated for the management of the organization. Under the allocated budget, organization needs to segregate those in such a manner which could bring positive as well as effective results for the organization (Angeloska-Dichovska & Mirchevska, 2017).
Organization needs to perform their activities on the basis of budget allocated for performing those activities because if the budget will not be considered, the organization may suffer from the over cost incurred issues and this may lead to the enhancement in the price set up for the newly launched breakfast meal. Hence, the bifurcation of the budget should be done in accordance with the budget allocated for conducting the activities in relevance with the attainment of gaols set up by the management for the organization (Ang, Benischke & Doh, 2015).
Cost-effectiveness technique will be the most useful technique for McDonald’s in terms of setting the reasonable price for the newly launched meal. Adaptation of adequate pricing strategy helps the organization to set the minimum and reasonable prices so that demand for the new product could be increased in terms of attaining the goals and the objectives of the organization. Under this technique, organization needs to cut their additional expenses to set the reasonable price for the consumers (Akaka, Vargo & Lusch, 2013).
Apart from the cost effectiveness technique, organization could also use strategy under which when the demand of the products will rise in the target market, the prices will also be increased in order to attain the maximum rate of profits and the same should be done in the situation when the demand for the product decreases. And in this scenario, organization will decrease the prices of the products in order to enhance the demand for the product. This is the most suitable and effective technique which could be used for enhancing the demand for the product.
Branding and Theming
This is the technique which is used to encourage the consumers to purchase the product. This technique is used as the short term approach for enhancing the volume of the sales and it helps the organization to boosts up the sales in the short period of time. The techniques which could be used for enhancing the sales of the organization are advertisement and the promotional strategies. These methods help the organization to attract the number of consumers towards the organization to consume the newly launched healthy breakfast meal. Advertisement could be done through various mediums and the most trending and effective mediums are print medium for advertisement and the electronic medium of advertisement. Along with the new method chosen for promoting the new products of the organization, existing methods of advertisement of the organization could also be used in order to decrease the cost of the production because new promotional campaign will indicate to increase in the cost and it will directly impact upon the prices of the products (Aaker, 2010).
Service Sequence
Number of issues is related to the service sequence and especially with the service sequence of restaurant business, lot of issues are connected. Basic service sequence of the McDonald’s is consumers enter into the premises, they move towards the counter section and menu is being displayed above the counter, after selecting the desired item from the menu, consumers can place the order for the same and payment needs to be made in the same scenario through cash or card. Generally, all fast food companies prefer to use this type of service sequence which is also known as the self-service and under this, consumer needs to perform all the functions from selecting the item, placing the order and till the taking the order from the counter (Armstrong, et. al., 2015).
Sometimes, organization needs to face issues such as consumer’s frustration, negative behaviour from consumer and these occur due to lack of place available in the premises of the organisation in weekends, etc. To resolve these types of issues, organization needs to take effective steps such as adaptation of adequate strategies through which organization could be able to satisfy its consumer’s needs in order to attain the expected goals and the objectives.
Training
Training is another crucial aspect for enhancement in the goodwill of the organization. Under the fast food industry, adequate training methods are applied in order to train the consumers in an appropriate manner for satisfying the consumer’s needs. Taking orders from the consumer, understanding the needs of the consumers, tolerating consumer’s unethical language, etc. is the basic requirement which should be present with the candidate serving or helping the consumer in the McDonald’s premises. With these qualities, organization will be able to improve its service standards, as well as positive attitude towards the consumers, attract them to visit the same location again.
New Food and beverage management system
Apart from this, organization needs to adopt certain other training measures which are required to make the products which are about to be launched in the target market for the purpose of enhancing the growth of the organization in the competitive business environment (Cornelissen & Cornelissen, 2017).
Customer Service
Customer service is another major factor through which organization could enhance its performance. In terms of Fast Food Industries’ functionalities, consumers are treated as the biggest factor which could take the organization to the success level whereas consumers are only responsible for the organization’s negative performance. In order to improve customer’s experience, every customer base organization focuses on adopting the effective strategies through which consumer’s queries in relation with the organization’s functionalities, quality served, etc. type of issues could be resolved.
Apart from this, organization could also adopt the feedback method and under this method, consumers are asked to provide reviews on the services offered to them and under that feedback template, all questions are mentioned through consumer have been gone through. With the reviews from the consumers, organization is able to analyse their performance in terms of satisfying its consumer’s services and in order of the quality of the services offered to the consumers (Angeloska-Dichovska & Mirchevska, 2017).
Current Legislation Awareness
To perform in an adequate manner in the target market, they need to follow certain rules and the regulations described by the local government and by the international governmental policies. It states that they need to follow consumer protection act, health and safety act and in both these acts, protection of consumer’s interest is defined. Consumer’s interest should not be overruled as well as they should be served with the adequate quality for which they are paying. Apart from these laws and the legislations, workplace act and the environmental protection act must also be followed in order to cover the entire requirements of the governmental bodies as well as to protect the interest of their employees as well as to protect the environment (McDonald’s, 2017).
Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that the business plan developed for enhancing the demand for the product launched by the McDonald’s in the target market will be effective. McDonald’s is planning to introduce a healthy range of breakfast meals under which organization could be able to enhance their market share as well as this modification has been adopted for changing the consumer’s perception over the fast food items. The items added in the healthy breakfast range are quite impressive and only healthy ingredients are used for making these items. The strategies, techniques, and plans were used for making the business plan effective and up to the mark set up by the management of the McDonald’s are positive and result oriented.
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