12 ms·

Why McDonald's wins in any economy

59 points by dko 15y ago

typicalrunt 15y ago
"win" being the operative word here. cost-conscious consumers are flocking to fast-food eateries The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. That's why Walmart, Dollar Stores, and McDonalds will always do well in desperate times. It would be nicer to see people purchasing raw ingredients and cooking food at home. I can't imagine the amount of bad health effects that are going to hit the nation in 10 years if this behaviour continues.
- estel 15y ago
  Did you read the article, out of interest? If you haven't been in a McDonald's lately, you might assume that the company simply has been the beneficiary of the struggling economy in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, and that cost-conscious consumers are flocking to fast-food eateries instead of sit-down restaurants. But to post the kind of impressive numbers McDonald's has -- and to weather the current turmoil -- Skinner has had to find ways to attract new diners while retaining the hard-core Big Mac-and-fries crowd. And so today, along with burgers and shakes, you can stroll into a McDonald's and pick up a snack wrap or a fruit smoothie or a decent latte (much to Starbucks' chagrin), all of which translates into higher sales per location.
  - eru 15y ago
    Not only higher sales, but probably also higher margins.
    - jackpirate 15y ago
      I'll bet the margins on the health-ish food are lower than on the big macs. The supply chain probably isn't as robust yet.
      - eru 15y ago
        The market is more immature, there's less cutthroat competition than for burgers. That's why the profit margins will should be higher.
  - bbq 15y ago
    Well, that says at most Skinner has tried those things in order to become independent (inelastic) of the 'economy' (whatever that means). There's no analysis to back that up. The last line of the paragraph you quoted is Last year average per-store sales jumped to $2.4 million, from $1.6 million in 2004. That just says McDonald's is doing relatively well - nothing about why. This could simply reflect McDonald's recent strategy of improving existing locations rather than expanding. The average could also be raised by closing less profitable stores though I haven't been able to find any data on the number, location, and profitability of McDonald's restaurants over time.
  - typicalrunt 15y ago
    I read the article. But I'm looking past the words and not believing the BS from the reporter or the PR department. The nutritional information on snack wraps and lattes shows that McDonalds is still trying their old tactics, but dressing up food to look healthy. Let's look at some numbers: - A snack wrap is about 350 calories for 118g of food. It contains 19g of fat. That's a snack where 16% of its mass is fat. - Their salads contain up to 21g of fat. In a salad. - Their lattes (unless you get the non-fat variety) are high in fat and loaded with sugar (up to 53g!).
- bad_user 15y ago
  It would be nicer to see people purchasing raw ingredients and cooking food at home I'm trying to do that, but it's pretty hard and time consuming. I don't know how people do it -- I mean, I can cook and sometimes it is delicious, but it's nothing worst than waisting 2 hours on something and then at the end to find out that I blew the dish for some reason. I also cannot eat the same food for more than 2 days in a row. So if anybody knows some book on food recipes that are easy to cook, I'd be grateful -- keep in mind though that I'm a carnivore that hates pizza/pasta (love grilled stuff :)).
  - neutronicus 15y ago
    I also cannot eat the same food for more than 2 days in a row. I'm a carnivore You "cannot" eat the same food for more than 2 days in a row? Sorry to say it, but there's your problem. Treat meat like a side dish instead of the main course, make legumes in big batches, and you can do most of your cooking on the weekend. I can feed myself for less than $100 a month.
  - seagaia 15y ago
    Rice + any meat + whatever sauce you want. Can't go wrong there. Very cheap, too...
  - danking00 15y ago
    I find it quite easy, but my requirements are vastly different than yours. I don't eat meat, so that takes out a huge array of easy meals (burgers, kielbasa, beef stew, etc. [for tips on this stuff, I suggest on-line recipe sites. search for a dish you know you like {"beef stew" or "chili"} and pick the highest rated one. the comments are almost always useful in improving the dish]) Things that I can prepare and then forget about free me up for other tasks. Stews, chili and baked goods are great options here. Things that take <30min (cooking pasta, chopping vegetables, stir-frying meat in your case) are also awesome when you're strapped for time. My TexMex dishes are also generally quick and take this form: fill tortilla with stuff, include some sort of sauce from a can or home-made, bake; fry; or broil tortilla, eat. For lunch, I just cut up this week's random assortment of vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, sprouts, etc.), layer some hummus on some sort of bread (pita, sliced, bagel, tortilla, etc.), and place vegetable mix on bread. Breakfast is oatmeal, preferably with blueberries. I'd say my daily home made meals are pretty average tasting, but, having never really frequented fast food, my stereotype of delicious food is a 20$ or more plate in the North End. Imagining that cost makes my pasta with sauce and cheese acceptable.
- FrancescoRizzi 15y ago
  Also "any economy" may be arguable. If everyone had a bazillion $ to spend, would they go to the McDonald down the corner or the 1st-class restaurant? Would they hire a top chief to prep their meals at home instead? Sure, McDonald would adjust their offerings accordingly, but that just proves that their (current) strategy would not work (and "win") in "any" economic landscape
- shpxnvz 15y ago
  The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. Fast food is absolutely not the cheapest alternative. We cook about 95% of our meals, using roughly half organic ingredients, and seldom exceed $2-$3 per person per meal for our family which includes left overs. Our average is well below that. Fast food restaurants in our area typically charge $6-$7 per "complete" meal. When you cook for yourself you can take advantage of sales and bulk purchase discounts which can dramatically lower your ingredient cost. Whatever the reason is for people to eat fast food so much, low cost surely can't be it.
  - orangecat 15y ago
    "Linux is only free if your time has no value."
    - shpxnvz 15y ago
      Linux is only free if your time has no value. Americans average 2.7 hours of TV per day now (1). Exactly what monetary value do you assign to that time that makes it worth more than the same time spent cooking? 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
      - Jach 15y ago
        Minimum wage is a decent metric for assigning a dollar amount to free time slices. Suddenly cooking all the time doesn't seem as beneficial money-wise. (There are a bunch of other, better, reasons to cook though.) Personally I don't enjoy the process of cooking or cleaning, so on top of the time there's also some psychological stressors involved, and I don't want the overhead of a bunch of cooking devices and spices and so forth that I'll only ever use a few times a year. I have the necessities for when I do cook and even that feels like a bit too much. If I ever have kids I suspect I'll be forced to change my attitude, or find a wife who absolutely loves to cook. Not giving your kids home-cooked meals when they're home the majority of the time seems near the line of parental abuse to me. Don't even talk about the parents who feed their kids nothing but McD's. Edit: I'm going to throw in a plug for http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
Gravityloss 15y ago
AFAIK they've never been profitable in my country, though it might be an accounting trick...
- jbail 15y ago
  What country would that be?
- sesqu 15y ago
  That's a common rumour in Finland, at least, but they've posted 3 profitable years (out of 26). I don't know about their accounting, but I find it plausible that they'd want to maintain a presence at a small loss.
- run4yourlives 15y ago
  You sure that's just not an account "accident" to avoid paying taxes?
shrikant 15y ago
Reminds me of this excerpt from Iacocca: [...] my father had opened a hot-dog restaurant called the Orpheum Wiener House. It was the perfect business for somebody without much cash. All he really needed to get started were a grill, a bun warmer, and a few stools. My father always drilled two things into me: never get into a capital-intensive business, because the bankers will end up owning you. (I should have paid more attention to this particular piece of advice!) And when times are tough, be in the food business, because no matter how bad things get, people still have to eat. The Orpheum Wiener House stayed afloat all through the Great Depression.
- randomdata 15y ago
  However, food production was one of the worst businesses to be in during the great depression. Food prices plummeted to well below cost of production rates. Combined with some extraordinary environmental events around the same time, farmers were hit hard – really hard. However, in this recession, it is one of the best businesses you can be in. Prices haven't been this strong in a long, long time. Goes to show there are no absolutes in life.
  - jackpirate 15y ago
    The farming and restaurant businesses are completely different. Low food prices hurts farmers, but helps restaurant owners.
    - randomdata 15y ago
      Absolutely. They are, however, both in the food business, which is what the quote said to be in. As seen by the farmers of the time, the fact that people need to eat doesn't mean that you will survive hard times.
- ido 15y ago
  And when times are tough, be in the food business, because no matter how bad things get, people still have to eat. Seems strange to me, after all when I don't have money I cook at home.
hernan7 15y ago
Am I the only one that found that French fries illustration to be terrible? Cheesy picture that purports to be a "chart", that shows 2 values, plus the cryptical legend "French fries do not reflect actual earnings-per-share gains." And I'm not even much of a Tufte fanatic myself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk
- sili 15y ago
  It didn't even register as a chart related to the story for me. I thought it was an add for MdDonald's (key of the article content) and ignored it.
- hammock 15y ago
  It's worse. If you look closely, it's really one data point not two, since the value is not given for the lower french fry. By the way, that footnote is hilarious.
- angrycoder 15y ago
  http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding
- qq66 15y ago
  I think it's supposed to be a joke.
apaprocki 15y ago
Business might be great, but TIL McDonald's borrowed $109M directly from the Fed as part of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility invoked after the Lehman collapse and was in debt to the Fed for 223 days. http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/federal-reserve-emergency-lending#/McDonald%27s_Corp http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/federal-reserve-...
- tptacek 15y ago
  Does that suggest something about the precariousness of MCD's business model or about the severity of the credit crisis?
  - apaprocki 15y ago
    You'd have to dive into their business to figure out if they would have been in deep trouble without public money or if they were literally eating our lunch. Personally, I'm not sure a fast-food chain should be receiving money from the Fed, but hey...
    - tptacek 15y ago
      400,000 employees, for a start.
      - apaprocki 15y ago
        Looking at their financial sheet, I'm not sure any of their business would be affected if they had to pay more for this measly $109M. Their profit and positive cash flow is in the billions per year. At some point (and higher rate), someone would loan McDonald's $109M, no? Why wasn't this just left up to the market?
        eru 15y ago
        McDonald's probably has some lobbyist of their own.
  - 15y ago
grimen 15y ago
McDonalds has a really bad rumour in Sweden. Yes people eat there, but people are starting to change mindsets I've noticed. Subway and such a bit healthier alternatives are becoming more popular. Wort to notice is that what McDonalds is earning money on is not really the food, it's the real estate and speculation around these. IKEA do the same thing: "We want t build a building here" - who wants to have a store nearby? bids by other companies and regions who want people to come there more often and pay tax.
- roel_v 15y ago
  How long have there been Subway franchises in Sweden? More people are going to Subway here (Netherlands) too, but that's just because they're only now starting to open more shops. Furthermore, http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=4596465 http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&#38... says that you're flat out wrong - 2010 was a record year for McDonalds turnover in Sweden. Unless you have data on McDonalds' image and the result of that on its turnover in Sweden, don't take your impressions of certain phenomenons as fact because it's sure to suffer sample bias.
ww520 15y ago
Has anyone own or run a McDonald franchise? How's the experience? Does it require lots of work? Or just require passive monitoring? How's the cost vs payout?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- sgoraya 15y ago
  My father's/family friend opened a McDonalds franchise about 20 years ago. He needed to have approximately $350k, 'non-borrowed' cash on hand to be considered as a franchisee. > How's the experience? It must be good because he now owns 4 McD franchises. All his kids worked there through HS and (some) college. His son is the "Manager" of all 4. > Does it require lots of work? I think after their first couple of restaurants, they have developed and refined their management system. The son works a typical work week floating between restaurants and balancing books, hiring managers, etc. > Or just require passive monitoring? My fathers friend was at the first restaurant from almost open to close everyday for several years. (I used to ride my bike there for free ice cream and he was always there). The son seems to have enough free time - its almost like a 8-6pm type job for him. > How's the cost vs payout? He and his family are very well off and have been able to invest in other money making areas as well. A lot of hard work on the front end but now he has 4 cash cows that his son manages.
  - ww520 15y ago
    Thanks. That's very good info.
- athst 15y ago
  CNBC had a good special on McDonald's a while ago called "Big Mac: Inside the McDonald's Empire." They talk to a franchisee, and to me it looks like you need to work really hard to be successful. You're basically the CEO of your own business with your own money at risk, so it is nothing like "passive monitoring." Anecdotally, it's pretty clear to me when you walk into a McDonald's how much the owner cares about it - some are pretty impressive, but some are also awful. http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1409843942 http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1409843942
Tichy 15y ago
I wonder how long those salads would hold up before they decay visibly :-/
chaostheory 15y ago
This reads like a submarine PR article for McDonalds and Jim Skinner.
athst 15y ago
I like the idea of supporting your managers in front of employees even if you don't agree. Address it later in private so you don't undermine them.
teyc 15y ago
One thing I admire McDonald's is its willingness to train its workers. One of my colleague's teenage daughter worked for McD's when she was in high school, and later worked for another fast food joint and she was able to identify many operational inefficiencies. Another thing is McDonald's never got stuck in the idea that its core brand is about burgers, or expanding its menu is bad mantra. The McHappy meals for example, guaranteed regular clientelle because of its collectibles. But the parents didn't want burgers. So the business altered its menu to keep the parents happy. In contrast, Burger King's menu has remained static.

59 points by dko 15y ago

"win" being the operative word here. cost-conscious consumers are flocking to fast-food eateries The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. That's why Walmart, Dollar Stores, and McDonalds will always do well in desperate times. It would be nicer to see people purchasing raw ingredients and cooking food at home. I can't imagine the amount of bad health effects that are going to hit the nation in 10 years if this behaviour continues.

estel 15y ago
Did you read the article, out of interest? If you haven't been in a McDonald's lately, you might assume that the company simply has been the beneficiary of the struggling economy in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, and that cost-conscious consumers are flocking to fast-food eateries instead of sit-down restaurants. But to post the kind of impressive numbers McDonald's has -- and to weather the current turmoil -- Skinner has had to find ways to attract new diners while retaining the hard-core Big Mac-and-fries crowd. And so today, along with burgers and shakes, you can stroll into a McDonald's and pick up a snack wrap or a fruit smoothie or a decent latte (much to Starbucks' chagrin), all of which translates into higher sales per location.
- eru 15y ago
  Not only higher sales, but probably also higher margins.
  - jackpirate 15y ago
    I'll bet the margins on the health-ish food are lower than on the big macs. The supply chain probably isn't as robust yet.
    - eru 15y ago
      The market is more immature, there's less cutthroat competition than for burgers. That's why the profit margins will should be higher.
- bbq 15y ago
  Well, that says at most Skinner has tried those things in order to become independent (inelastic) of the 'economy' (whatever that means). There's no analysis to back that up. The last line of the paragraph you quoted is Last year average per-store sales jumped to $2.4 million, from $1.6 million in 2004. That just says McDonald's is doing relatively well - nothing about why. This could simply reflect McDonald's recent strategy of improving existing locations rather than expanding. The average could also be raised by closing less profitable stores though I haven't been able to find any data on the number, location, and profitability of McDonald's restaurants over time.
- typicalrunt 15y ago
  I read the article. But I'm looking past the words and not believing the BS from the reporter or the PR department. The nutritional information on snack wraps and lattes shows that McDonalds is still trying their old tactics, but dressing up food to look healthy. Let's look at some numbers: - A snack wrap is about 350 calories for 118g of food. It contains 19g of fat. That's a snack where 16% of its mass is fat. - Their salads contain up to 21g of fat. In a salad. - Their lattes (unless you get the non-fat variety) are high in fat and loaded with sugar (up to 53g!).
bad_user 15y ago
It would be nicer to see people purchasing raw ingredients and cooking food at home I'm trying to do that, but it's pretty hard and time consuming. I don't know how people do it -- I mean, I can cook and sometimes it is delicious, but it's nothing worst than waisting 2 hours on something and then at the end to find out that I blew the dish for some reason. I also cannot eat the same food for more than 2 days in a row. So if anybody knows some book on food recipes that are easy to cook, I'd be grateful -- keep in mind though that I'm a carnivore that hates pizza/pasta (love grilled stuff :)).
- neutronicus 15y ago
  I also cannot eat the same food for more than 2 days in a row. I'm a carnivore You "cannot" eat the same food for more than 2 days in a row? Sorry to say it, but there's your problem. Treat meat like a side dish instead of the main course, make legumes in big batches, and you can do most of your cooking on the weekend. I can feed myself for less than $100 a month.
- seagaia 15y ago
  Rice + any meat + whatever sauce you want. Can't go wrong there. Very cheap, too...
- danking00 15y ago
  I find it quite easy, but my requirements are vastly different than yours. I don't eat meat, so that takes out a huge array of easy meals (burgers, kielbasa, beef stew, etc. [for tips on this stuff, I suggest on-line recipe sites. search for a dish you know you like {"beef stew" or "chili"} and pick the highest rated one. the comments are almost always useful in improving the dish]) Things that I can prepare and then forget about free me up for other tasks. Stews, chili and baked goods are great options here. Things that take <30min (cooking pasta, chopping vegetables, stir-frying meat in your case) are also awesome when you're strapped for time. My TexMex dishes are also generally quick and take this form: fill tortilla with stuff, include some sort of sauce from a can or home-made, bake; fry; or broil tortilla, eat. For lunch, I just cut up this week's random assortment of vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, sprouts, etc.), layer some hummus on some sort of bread (pita, sliced, bagel, tortilla, etc.), and place vegetable mix on bread. Breakfast is oatmeal, preferably with blueberries. I'd say my daily home made meals are pretty average tasting, but, having never really frequented fast food, my stereotype of delicious food is a 20$ or more plate in the North End. Imagining that cost makes my pasta with sauce and cheese acceptable.
FrancescoRizzi 15y ago
Also "any economy" may be arguable. If everyone had a bazillion $ to spend, would they go to the McDonald down the corner or the 1st-class restaurant? Would they hire a top chief to prep their meals at home instead? Sure, McDonald would adjust their offerings accordingly, but that just proves that their (current) strategy would not work (and "win") in "any" economic landscape
shpxnvz 15y ago
The economy isn't doing well at all, and people are flocking to the cheapest alternatives. Fast food is absolutely not the cheapest alternative. We cook about 95% of our meals, using roughly half organic ingredients, and seldom exceed $2-$3 per person per meal for our family which includes left overs. Our average is well below that. Fast food restaurants in our area typically charge $6-$7 per "complete" meal. When you cook for yourself you can take advantage of sales and bulk purchase discounts which can dramatically lower your ingredient cost. Whatever the reason is for people to eat fast food so much, low cost surely can't be it.
- orangecat 15y ago
  "Linux is only free if your time has no value."
  - shpxnvz 15y ago
    Linux is only free if your time has no value. Americans average 2.7 hours of TV per day now (1). Exactly what monetary value do you assign to that time that makes it worth more than the same time spent cooking? 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
    - Jach 15y ago
      Minimum wage is a decent metric for assigning a dollar amount to free time slices. Suddenly cooking all the time doesn't seem as beneficial money-wise. (There are a bunch of other, better, reasons to cook though.) Personally I don't enjoy the process of cooking or cleaning, so on top of the time there's also some psychological stressors involved, and I don't want the overhead of a bunch of cooking devices and spices and so forth that I'll only ever use a few times a year. I have the necessities for when I do cook and even that feels like a bit too much. If I ever have kids I suspect I'll be forced to change my attitude, or find a wife who absolutely loves to cook. Not giving your kids home-cooked meals when they're home the majority of the time seems near the line of parental abuse to me. Don't even talk about the parents who feed their kids nothing but McD's. Edit: I'm going to throw in a plug for http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ http://www.cookingforengineers.com/

Gravityloss 15y ago

AFAIK they've never been profitable in my country, though it might be an accounting trick...

jbail 15y ago
What country would that be?
sesqu 15y ago
That's a common rumour in Finland, at least, but they've posted 3 profitable years (out of 26). I don't know about their accounting, but I find it plausible that they'd want to maintain a presence at a small loss.
run4yourlives 15y ago
You sure that's just not an account "accident" to avoid paying taxes?

shrikant 15y ago

Reminds me of this excerpt from Iacocca: [...] my father had opened a hot-dog restaurant called the Orpheum Wiener House. It was the perfect business for somebody without much cash. All he really needed to get started were a grill, a bun warmer, and a few stools. My father always drilled two things into me: never get into a capital-intensive business, because the bankers will end up owning you. (I should have paid more attention to this particular piece of advice!) And when times are tough, be in the food business, because no matter how bad things get, people still have to eat. The Orpheum Wiener House stayed afloat all through the Great Depression.

randomdata 15y ago
However, food production was one of the worst businesses to be in during the great depression. Food prices plummeted to well below cost of production rates. Combined with some extraordinary environmental events around the same time, farmers were hit hard – really hard. However, in this recession, it is one of the best businesses you can be in. Prices haven't been this strong in a long, long time. Goes to show there are no absolutes in life.
- jackpirate 15y ago
  The farming and restaurant businesses are completely different. Low food prices hurts farmers, but helps restaurant owners.
  - randomdata 15y ago
    Absolutely. They are, however, both in the food business, which is what the quote said to be in. As seen by the farmers of the time, the fact that people need to eat doesn't mean that you will survive hard times.
ido 15y ago
And when times are tough, be in the food business, because no matter how bad things get, people still have to eat. Seems strange to me, after all when I don't have money I cook at home.

hernan7 15y ago

Am I the only one that found that French fries illustration to be terrible? Cheesy picture that purports to be a "chart", that shows 2 values, plus the cryptical legend "French fries do not reflect actual earnings-per-share gains." And I'm not even much of a Tufte fanatic myself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk

sili 15y ago
It didn't even register as a chart related to the story for me. I thought it was an add for MdDonald's (key of the article content) and ignored it.
hammock 15y ago
It's worse. If you look closely, it's really one data point not two, since the value is not given for the lower french fry. By the way, that footnote is hilarious.
angrycoder 15y ago
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding
qq66 15y ago
I think it's supposed to be a joke.

apaprocki 15y ago

Business might be great, but TIL McDonald's borrowed $109M directly from the Fed as part of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility invoked after the Lehman collapse and was in debt to the Fed for 223 days. http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/federal-reserve-emergency-lending#/McDonald%27s_Corp http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/federal-reserve-...

tptacek 15y ago
Does that suggest something about the precariousness of MCD's business model or about the severity of the credit crisis?
- apaprocki 15y ago
  You'd have to dive into their business to figure out if they would have been in deep trouble without public money or if they were literally eating our lunch. Personally, I'm not sure a fast-food chain should be receiving money from the Fed, but hey...
  - tptacek 15y ago
    400,000 employees, for a start.
    - apaprocki 15y ago
      Looking at their financial sheet, I'm not sure any of their business would be affected if they had to pay more for this measly $109M. Their profit and positive cash flow is in the billions per year. At some point (and higher rate), someone would loan McDonald's $109M, no? Why wasn't this just left up to the market?
      - eru 15y ago
        McDonald's probably has some lobbyist of their own.
- 15y ago

grimen 15y ago

McDonalds has a really bad rumour in Sweden. Yes people eat there, but people are starting to change mindsets I've noticed. Subway and such a bit healthier alternatives are becoming more popular. Wort to notice is that what McDonalds is earning money on is not really the food, it's the real estate and speculation around these. IKEA do the same thing: "We want t build a building here" - who wants to have a store nearby? bids by other companies and regions who want people to come there more often and pay tax.

roel_v 15y ago
How long have there been Subway franchises in Sweden? More people are going to Subway here (Netherlands) too, but that's just because they're only now starting to open more shops. Furthermore, http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=4596465 http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&#38... says that you're flat out wrong - 2010 was a record year for McDonalds turnover in Sweden. Unless you have data on McDonalds' image and the result of that on its turnover in Sweden, don't take your impressions of certain phenomenons as fact because it's sure to suffer sample bias.

ww520 15y ago

Has anyone own or run a McDonald franchise? How's the experience? Does it require lots of work? Or just require passive monitoring? How's the cost vs payout?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
sgoraya 15y ago
My father's/family friend opened a McDonalds franchise about 20 years ago. He needed to have approximately $350k, 'non-borrowed' cash on hand to be considered as a franchisee. > How's the experience? It must be good because he now owns 4 McD franchises. All his kids worked there through HS and (some) college. His son is the "Manager" of all 4. > Does it require lots of work? I think after their first couple of restaurants, they have developed and refined their management system. The son works a typical work week floating between restaurants and balancing books, hiring managers, etc. > Or just require passive monitoring? My fathers friend was at the first restaurant from almost open to close everyday for several years. (I used to ride my bike there for free ice cream and he was always there). The son seems to have enough free time - its almost like a 8-6pm type job for him. > How's the cost vs payout? He and his family are very well off and have been able to invest in other money making areas as well. A lot of hard work on the front end but now he has 4 cash cows that his son manages.
- ww520 15y ago
  Thanks. That's very good info.
athst 15y ago
CNBC had a good special on McDonald's a while ago called "Big Mac: Inside the McDonald's Empire." They talk to a franchisee, and to me it looks like you need to work really hard to be successful. You're basically the CEO of your own business with your own money at risk, so it is nothing like "passive monitoring." Anecdotally, it's pretty clear to me when you walk into a McDonald's how much the owner cares about it - some are pretty impressive, but some are also awful. http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1409843942 http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1409843942

Tichy 15y ago

I wonder how long those salads would hold up before they decay visibly :-/

chaostheory 15y ago

This reads like a submarine PR article for McDonalds and Jim Skinner.

athst 15y ago

I like the idea of supporting your managers in front of employees even if you don't agree. Address it later in private so you don't undermine them.

teyc 15y ago

One thing I admire McDonald's is its willingness to train its workers. One of my colleague's teenage daughter worked for McD's when she was in high school, and later worked for another fast food joint and she was able to identify many operational inefficiencies. Another thing is McDonald's never got stuck in the idea that its core brand is about burgers, or expanding its menu is bad mantra. The McHappy meals for example, guaranteed regular clientelle because of its collectibles. But the parents didn't want burgers. So the business altered its menu to keep the parents happy. In contrast, Burger King's menu has remained static.