After losing 14% group profits in 2014 in US, McDonald’s finally took action. It announced that McDonald’s will begin to accept reservations and provide table service in Sweden. 31 franchisees will start this service for a week, people can reserve a table online.
In the 17th century, McDonald’s was the first restaurant that use the assembly-line system. For this reason, McDonald’s was regarded as the originator of modern fast-food industry. However, after 4 centuries, McDonald’s now has to find a new way to compete its rivals, such as Five Guys and Burger King. I think McDonald’s took the cost leadership strategy previously, because it had reputation for selling cheap, fast and unhealthy food. But through this table service action, McDonald’s is changing their strategy to differentiation strategy, which is planing to provide particular service to become more competitive in the fast-food industry. However, this measure of McDonald’s is too easy to imitate, as long as McDonald’s gets benefits from this action, other fast-food companies will launch the same plan.
As far as I can see, MacDonald’s is slowing down their business. Nevertheless, I want to interpret MacDonald’s action as a retrogressive sign of fast-food industry, because this step lead it to the opposite direction of the core value about fast food.
References:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/05/mcdonalds-table-service-trial-uk-fast-food
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/fast-food3.htm
