Mcdonalds Intro

McDonald’s

McDonald’s, the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurant, was founded 1940 by Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California.

With a menu of only nine items, including the famous 15 cent cheeseburger, McDonald’s became very popular drawing the attention from many investors.

Due to its franchise system, it quickly spread all over the US. By 1959 more than 100 McDonald’s restaurant were operating in the its home land. 4 years later they were more than 500.

It was 1965 when McDonald’s went IPO offering at $22.50 per share.

McDonald’s first step into internalization was made 1967, when the McDonald’s opened restaurants in Canada and Puerto Rico.

McDonald’s success kept on. The hamburger specialist had its 5,000th restaurant opened in Kanagawa, Japan 1978 followed by openings in Spain, Denmark and the Philippines. Soon McDonald’s was serving meals in more 32 countries and 7,778 locations.

As the years passed many new products such as the famous BigMac 1968, Quarter Pounder 1973, Egg McMuffin 1975 and the Happy Meal 1979.

2009 McCafe was launched in Australia, offering a wide range of coffee products, cakes and cookies.

Today, McDonald’s has more than 33,700 restaurants in over 117 countries.

Operating in different countries has forced McDonald’s to adapt to each country’s eating culture. Besides offering the standard products like the Cheeseburger or the BigMac, products like the Chicken Maharaja Mac in India or McLaks in Norway have been essential modifications to meet the local demand. McDonald’s international menu is formed by more than 150 variations of hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, coffees and many other meals.

Managing this hugh amounts of products, having an overview, keep innovating/improving each and every single market represent an enormous challenge to a company which started selling plain hamburgers.

Nonetheless, as we could see from McDonald’s history, they have proven to master the difficulties of...