Hlmanshu’s blog talks about McDonalds’ new innovative approach to customer ordering and seating system. There will be touchscreens, which allow customers to choose toppings as well as seating locations. Despite he thinks it might not be a feasible idea, I think this will be rather beneficial for MacDonald’s. For his first argument, he states that it will be costly to develop such software and the touchscreen. I disagree with this point. First reason is that there is already developed software that is similar to what MacDonald’s looks for, thus MacDonald’s can easily obtain the software by forming a technical tie up with the companies that own the software. In Japan, where I am from this “touch screen ordering” system is actually very common for major restaurants. There are many restaurants, in which there is a touch screen for each table that customers can order food themselves whenever they want. Because MacDonald’s itself does not need to develop its own software from scratch, therefore they can reduce the development cost. For his third argument, he claim that during rush hours this will create an over order resulting in strain on workers. I somewhat disagree with this. It is possible to have too many orders at once from such simple ordering system, however this also means each Macdonald’s restaurant does not require a physical person to take orders thus it can reduce the labour cost or maybe they can allocate the excess labour towards the food handling division. MacDonald’s is one of the biggest fast food companies in the world. It has a focus differentiation strategy of providing a meal fastest it can for busy people. This software allows MacDonald’s to provide the food even faster because it reduces the communication between the customers and order takers. Also, this will reduce ordering mistakes significantly as the customers themselves directly order food to the kitchen staff. For these reasons this software could make MacDonald’s even “faster food” with a good reputation of order accuracy. As customer usage of this software increases, MacDonald’s can easily obtain and organize customer trends for its menus, which would be useful for the new product ideas. For all reasons and arguments above, I think marginal benefit is greater than the opportunity cost of this software, thus I would conclude that this innovative idea is beneficial that MacDonald’s should pursue this project.
Bibliography
Cahill, Joe. “This Is McDonald’s Real Problem (and There’s Nothing It Can Do about It).” Crain’s Chicago Business. N.p., 10 Feb. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.
“How Fast Food Will Handle Minimum Wage Hike.” IGN Boards. N.p., 14 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.
Akode Hlmanshu’s blog link:
Akode, Hlmanshu. “UBC Business Blog.” UBC Business Blog. N.p., 5 Oct. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.