Business Strategy of McDonalds - Essay Example

1) The overall business strategy of McDonalds is based upon offering good quality products delivered through excellent services. satisfaction therefore is the key strategic alternative available to McDonalds to achieve competitive advantage. It has identified some important criteria such as cleanliness, product and service quality as well as the speed of delivery. By combining its resources with its core competencies, McDonalds has actually achieved a combination of strategic options which allows it to dominate the market in which it operates.

What is also critical to understand that it has been able to leverage its business strategy through its employees? One of the key success principles for McDonalds is to offer its products and services through employees which can deliver such services according to the established standards. To achieve this, McDonalds therefore has been able to develop its hiring and staffing process in such a manner that it is always able to attract the right type of employees to provide the required services at its restaurants.

The sources of its competitive advantage therefore are better product, quick delivery, effective service and highly trained crew members which deliver such services according to the standards developed by McDonalds.2)Strategic human resource management principles require that the firms must align their business strategy with that of the human resource strategy to achieve their strategic objectives. McDonalds’ seem to have been able to achieve the same through aligning its business strategy with its human resource and staffing strategy.

To successfully align all three, McDonald shas identified the key drivers of growth and believes that customer satisfaction- its key business strategy variable- can only be achieved through efficient human resource. In order to achieve this alignment of both the strategies, it has been able to outline its key philosophy for motivating the employees and meeting their needs and requirements. By addressing the key requirements of their employees through providing them value, growth opportunities, resources, as well as defined career paths and compensation plans, McDonalds has been able to align its business strategy with that of its human resource strategy.

It has further; focused on staffing local people or the friends of the existing crew members in order to ensure that right kind of people are staffed at appropriate positions. It is because of this reason that it attracts new crew members either through in-house advertising within restaurants or recruiting through local job centers.3)One of the key talent related threat for McDonalds may be based upon the failure of the processes developed by McDonalds. Since the overall nature of work does not require exceptional technical skills and employees have to follow certain standard procedures therefore McDonalds has to focus on constantly improving its work related processes to continue to utilize the talent of its employees.

McDonalds works in an industry which is hardly hit by the economic situation as everyone requires food to eat. Adequate compensation during tight labor market conditions therefore may be one of the threats to be negotiated with. In order to maintain its competitive advantage for next five years, McDonalds should focus upon adequately compensating its employees.