CASE STUDY

Mc Donalds India

Very few companies can claim success and

fast growth like that of McDonalds,
anywhere in the world. With more that
20,000 outlets around the world and over 6
new outlets opening every day somewhere
in the world, McDonalds chain of franchised
fast food restaurants can claim a unique
place in the pages of history of business.
McDonalds is the brain child of one
ambitions old man, Ray Kroc, who at the
age of 57 years was finally able to realize
his life long dream of becoming rich. In
1954, he had visited a small fast food
restaurant in San Bernardina, California,
which had a very simple menu of burgers,
french fries and soda, served in paper cups.

The speed of service and quality of food

and friendly personalized service.
McDonalds has become a truly
multinational company and has gone global
with outlets in most countries including
nearly 1300 outlets in Japan alone. The
largest and the busiest McDonalds
restaurant is in Moscow, Russia with a
seating capacity of over 4,000. An outlet is
being opened in China and October 1996,
India became another addition where
McDonalds opened its doors for the first
time. In every country, McDonalds
hamburgers contain 100% beef except in
India where beef eating is not culturally
acceptable among the Hindus. Accordingly,
the hamburger is called Maharajah Mac
instead of the usual Big Mac.
The quality of food is so consistently high
and maintained high that the company could
not find potatoes of acceptable quality in the
entire country of Russia. Accordingly,

potatoes are flown from Idaho, in U.S.A. to

maintain the high quality of French fries.
Even in India, the ingredients of high quality
are located where these can be found. The
mutton, for examples, comes from AlKabeer of Hyderabad, fresh lettuce from
Ooty Farms in Tamil Nadu, cheese from
Dynamix Dairies in Maharashtra and
sesame seed buns from Cremica Industries
of Phillaur in Punjab. The Potatoes for the
french fries are obtained from Tarai Foods
of Uttar Pradesh. This, for McDonalds
located in New Delhi.
For any enterprise to succeed, a good
management team is highly essential, no
matter how high the quality of the product
may be. An organization with bad
management is bound to fail. With this fact
in mind, all managers employed at
McDonalds are given proper management
training at Hamburger University in America,
operated by McDonald Corporation. In that
respect, the Indian entrepreneurs, Mr.

Vikram Bakshi and Amit Jatia both received

full management team.
With such well trained management team,
family oriented concept, high quality food
and clean surroundings, it is most unlikely
that any of the McDonalds restaurants will
ever fail.

Questions
1)
What do you think are the causes of
such phenomenal success and fast
growth of McDonalds?
2)
If you had to describe the business
philosophy of Ray Kroc, what would it
be?
3)
Why do you think, it took so long to
accept a McDonalds restaurant on
Indian soil?

4)
Do you think that fast food and quick
lunches would become a trend for
Indians who generally take a long lunch
break and where many businessmen go
home for their lunch? Explain.