http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/has-mcdonalds-bitten-off-more-than-it-can-chew/488790/
The above article discusses McDonald India’s plan to expand their menu. Currently, McDonalds India primarily focuses on cheap and preassembled food items. However, they plan to expand their menu into more expensive “high-end” food items, which take longer to assemble.
This decision could hurt the company. Currently, McDonald India’s point-of-difference is that it is much faster than other Western fast-food chains like Pizza Hut and KFC. This POD gives the company an upper hand over its competitors, but by increasing the time it takes to assemble foods, it will lose that POD and, thus lose its upper hand. Moreover, one can get a meal at McDonalds for less than $3. These low prices attract many middle class customers. However, by raising their prices McDonalds could become unattractive for the Indian middle class, which drive McDonald’s growth in India.
In North America, McDonalds has been very successful in upgrading its menu and expanding into food that is more expensive(ie McCafe), which could possibly be the motivation to replicate a similar strategy in India. However, as mentioned in class, strategies that work in one market will not necessarily work in another market.