These inflationary pressures also increase the costs of operations, marketing expenditures, and general administrative costs for the company. As a result, the company has to decrease its profit margins, or otherwise, transfer this negative impact to the general consumers by making its products more expensive (About McDonald's, 2011)
Analysis of the Business Environment for McDonald's A large number of forces are present in the external business environment of McDonald's. These forces include political and legal, social, demographical, and cultural, economic, technological, and environmental forces (Blythe & Megicks, 2010)
Opportunities: The most attractive opportunity for McDonald's is to strengthen its market position by opening self-owned restaurants and fast food outlets in potential markets of the world. It will give greater control and rapid growth to its operational setup (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2011)
These forces are related to the life styles, preferences, cultural and societal values, demographic and geographic segregation, behaviors, and attitudes of the general consumers in a country or region. These forces shape the way business organizations perform and compete in the marketplace (Jenny & Scammon, 2010)
McDonald's staff serves its consumers in a highly efficient way which is also helpful in strengthening their brand loyalty for this fast food chain. External Environment of McDonald's The external environment consists of potential threats and opportunities which companies in an industry face during the normal course of their business operations (Kotler, 2010)
All the corporate, business, and functional level strategies are formulated by keeping in view these social and demographical forces (McDonald's, 2013). In the fast food industry, these forces play an important role in changing the preferences of consumers towards fast food products as well as their behavior towards different industry participants (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2012)
McDonald's serves more than 69 million customers every day -- a fact which speaks about the success of this large scale corporation in the Global fast food industry. It was founded in 1940 by Richard McDonald and Maurice McDonald as a small BBQ restaurant (McDonald's, 2013)
McDonald's makes huge expenditures on Research and Development section which keeps it aware of the changing market trends, consumer preferences, life styles, and competitors' strategies. This R&D section serves as a big strength for the company in the world market (Pride & Ferrell, 2012)
Instrumental organizations benefited more from the focus on long-term goals and thereby are more aligned with the corporate model of strategic planning. The study also provided several noticeable differences between the profit and nonprofit sectors, "More numerous stakeholders, conflicting criteria for performance assessment, public accountability, and the social service nature of nonprofit organizations tend to make replication difficult between sectors" (Crittenden & Crittenden, 2000)
00 per hour, this is slightly above what Toyota and other Japanese automakers are paying their employees. (Bennett, 2009) This is important, because the lower average hourly wage will mean that the company's products are more competitively priced in overseas markets
Evidence of this can be seen with the large increase in sales that Ford would see during the third quarter of 2010 (as net income would increase by 68%). (Durban, 2010) This is helping the company, to be able to take a large amount of market share that had been lost to competitors
What are the resource strengths and weaknesses, and the external opportunities and threats? Resources -- internal to the company The various internal strengths for the company include: a good management team, low cost structure, earnings momentum, the credit services division and an outstanding supply chain. (Johnson, 2010) External is specific to the focal firm; different firms have different opportunities and threats Weaknesses A major external challenge that Ford could face in the future is aggressive competition from Hyundai
What are the resource strengths and weaknesses, and the external opportunities and threats? Resources -- internal to the company The various internal strengths for the company include: a good management team, low cost structure, earnings momentum, the credit services division and an outstanding supply chain. (Johnson, 2010) External is specific to the focal firm; different firms have different opportunities and threats Weaknesses A major external challenge that Ford could face in the future is aggressive competition from Hyundai
As they were able to begin selling popular crossover SUV's (like the Escape) and to recapture their dominance as far as truck sales are concerned. (Krisher, 2010) These two elements are important, because they are showing how a change in the internal environment would have a dramatic impact upon Ford
Business Strategy -- Kudler Fine Foods As companies grow a build customers bases and increase services to meet these demands there is a need to enhance information technologies to continually "Strategic management involves major decisions, business choices and actions that chart the course of the entire enterprise" (Gomez-Mejia et al
It identifies the pros and cons of major internal and external factors that presently impact Kudler Fine Foods. The two main tactics to strategic information systems are externally and internal focused-driven (Turban et al
Many luxury brands do not see much change in demand as the result of changes in economic conditions, but that is not the case with Coach. Although the company grew sales in each of the last five years (MSN Moneycentral, 2012), Coach saw slowing sales growth, falling profits and tighter margins (Berfield, 2009)
None of these resources, save the brand, are especially unique, and are matched by every other luxury goods company, but they support the brand well and as a result Coach has carved out a niche for itself within that industry. The company combines high quality products and image with pricing that makes it a more affordable proposition than many other luxury brands, a feature that heightens the company's appeal in many markets (Burkitt, 2011)
S. market is relatively mature, but internationally there is tremendous opportunity for growth (Wahba, 2010)
External Environment There are several components to the external environment of a business. These include the political/legal/regulatory environment, the economic environment, the competitive environment, external demand drivers and the technological environment (Anderson, 2013)