Prelim Requirement #3

McDonald’s Cohesion Case

McDonald’s Corporation—2009

Vijaya Narapareddy

University of Denver

www.mcdonalds.com

On May 5, 2009, McDonald’s Corporation (MCD, hereafter) and Starbucks went full force cam-
paigning for the attention of coffee connoisseurs. Following its success with McCafés in Europe,
MCD surprised Starbucks with its announcement to offer lattes and mochas in its McCafés in the
United States. In an attempt to woo rival Starbucks’ customers, MCD promised to offer premium
taste at bargain prices. This announcement came at a time when Starbucks, hard hit by losses,
was closing hundreds of stores in the United States. The MCD–Starbucks fight is everywhere on
the tube, in print, and the airwaves. MCD even taunts Starbucks with ads on buses and billboards
that read “4 bucks is dumb.” Starbucks is retaliating by placing newspaper ads that read “Beware
of a cheaper cup of coffee. It comes with a price.”

In April 2009, MCD reported strong sales growth in the first quarter of 2009 in spite of reces-
sionary conditions worldwide. MCD sales in the United States increased by 4.7 percent, in
Europe by 3.2 percent, and in Asia/Pacific, Middle East, and Africa by 5.5 percent. But as the
U.S. dollar gained strength against most currencies, especially the euro, British pound,
Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, and the Russian ruble, MCD experienced $642 million in
foreign currency translation losses in the first quarter of 2009, as indicated in Exhibit 1.
Undeterred, however, MCD is forging ahead with a renewed commitment to allure coffee
enthusiasts away from rivals, big and small.

History

MCD was launched in 1940 when brothers Dick and Mac McDonald opened a restaurant in San
Bernadino, California. However, the credit of growing the corporation into a franchised, global
operation is attributed to Ray Kroc, who acquired equity from the McDonald brothers and took
the firm public in 1965. MCD has a really cool history timeline called “Travel in Time with Us”
located at the http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/mcd_history.html Web page.
It reveals information such as the following:
Internal Issues

Organizational Structure

MCD’s top leadership has seen some turnover recently. The position of controller stands vacant,
and the McDonald’s USA group currently includes new executives to head its East and West
Divisions. Exhibit 3 provides a list of MCD’s top leadership as well as the firm’s organizational
chart.
Note that MCD’s operations are organized into a geographical structure with four key segments.
These four segments are (1) McDonald’s—USA, (2) McDonald’s—Europe, (3) McDonald’s—
APMEA (Asia/Pacific, Middle East, and Africa), and (4) McDonald’s—Other Countries and
Corporate.

Finances

In addition to the steady growth in the number of restaurants, MCD exhibited strong financial
per- formance by geographic segment between 2008 and 2009, even as the worldwide economic
crisis negatively impacted MCD’s key competitors. As shown in Exhibit 4, revenues and
operating mar- gins in the three key segments (United States, Europe, and APMEA) rose steadily
in 2006 through 2008, offsetting declines in the “Other and Corporate” segment.

MCD delivers consistently good performance, making it a darling for investors. In April 2009,
major industry analysts rated MCD as a “buy,” suggesting low levels of risk for investors.
MCD’s

financial statements presented in Exhibit 5 demonstrate the enthusiasm of the analyst

MCD’s consolidated balance sheet presented in Exhibit 6 depicts a decline in total assets held by
the company from about $29.02 billion in 2006 to about $28.5 billion in 2008. At the same time,
both long term debt and retained earnings increased significantly. Because the interest rate on
short-term debt for MCD is less than 6 percent for both short- and long-term debt, an increase in
MCD’s borrow- ing should not be cause for concern.

Social Responsibility

MCD views its Plan to Win strategy, composed of the 5 P’s (people, products, place, price, and
pro- motion) as fundamental to its business success and to becoming better rather than just
bigger. This plan aims at delivering exceptional customer experiences by undertaking several
initiatives focused on each of the five P’s grounded in a set of the corporate values shown in
Exhibit 7. MCD has made significant changes to become a socially and environmentally friendly
company. It has been recognized for its efforts in inclusive excellence with respect to employing
and creating opportunities for minorities. MCD has been listed among the “top 40 companies” by
Black Enterprise Magazine ​for 2005 through 2007. It established its first Global Environmental
Commitment in 1989. Since then it has been actively seeking to reduce its carbon footprint by
using recycled packaging. Additionally, Ronald McDonald’s Foundations raise millions of
dollars each year for children-cen- tered causes in the community.
According to Skinner, MCD’s CEO, “Corporate responsibility means many things to many peo-
ple. At McDonald’s, being a responsible company means living our values to enable us to serve
food responsibly, and work toward a sustainable future.” (MCD either does not have a written
mission statement nor vision statement or these documents are not publicly available because I
could not locate either of these at the time this case was written.)
Competitors

The food service industry, also known as the restaurant industry, is large and lucrative with a
market capitalization of $104 billion and a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 80.2. Yet it is highly
fragmented with over 550,000 restaurants ranging from small local eateries to global giants like
MCD and Yum! Brands, Inc. MCD towers over its direct competitors in the industry with a
market cap of $59.8 bil- lion in May 2009. Yum! Brands, which has a market cap of only $16.3
billion, and Burger King Holdings, Inc., whose market cap is $2.46 billion, are second and third,
respectively. Even though

Wendy’s directly competes with MCD in this industry, Wendy’s is currently owned by a private
holding company, the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group. A brief summary of competitor financial
highlights is provided in Exhibit 8.
Burger King (BKC)

Founded in Miami, Florida, in 1954 under the name “Insta Burger King” by James McLamore
and David Edgerton, Burger King Corporation (BKC), a subsidiary of Burger King Holdings,
Inc., owns or franchises about 11,500 restaurants in the United States and 70 foreign countries,
including Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Even
though it is considered the second largest burger chain in the world, it ranks third in size in the
food service industry. With a market capitalization of $2.46 billion, revenues of $2.55 billion,
and 41,000 full- time employees, BKC trails behind McDonald’s in several categories in the
fast-food industry, including operating margins, earnings per share (EPS), and P/E ratio.

In addition to its famous “Whopper sandwich,” BKC offers a variety of burgers, chicken sand-
wiches, breakfast items, and salads that compete directly with MCD. BKC, since the 1980s, has a
long-standing contract with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. As such, every major
army and air force location worldwide has a Burger King restaurant on its premises.

Yum! Brands (YUM)

Yum! Brands, Inc., formerly known as TRICON Global Restaurants, Inc., was founded in 1997
and changed its name to Yum! Brands, Inc. in 2002. Yum! operates over 36,000 restaurants in
110 countries. Yum! owns prominent restaurant chains, such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC),
Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s, and A&W. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, it
has a market cap of $15.56 billion, has 50,400 employees as of May 7, 2009, and is the closest
competitor in size to McDonald’s. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, Yum! is considered
the second largest in the global fast-food service industry. Offering more than one brand at a
single location has helped Yum! increase traffic at a single real estate location. Each of its
flagship brands also dominates the segment. For example, Taco Bell holds 60% of the Mexican
fast-food segment, KFC holds a respectable 45% of the fast-food chicken business, and Pizza
Hut leads the pizza business with a 15% market share in the pizza business segment. In addition
to seeking growth through acquisition of prominent brands, since its restructuring in 2006, Yum!
has been pursuing aggressive expansion overseas by expanding at the rate of 700 new locations
for the seventh consecutive year since 1999. In China alone, it has more than 2,600 restaurants,
account- ing for 15% of its revenues.
Wendy’s (WEN)

Founded in 1969, based in Dublin, Ohio, and operating over 6,600 restaurants, Wendy’s
International, Inc., owns 1,400 of the 6,600 restaurants. With 44,000 employees in 2007,
Wendy’s ranks fourth in the industry, behind McDonald’s, Yum!, and Burger King. The
company is well known for its unique square single, double, or triple made-to-order burgers and
fries, and alterna- tive menu items, such as baked potato, chili, and salads. Its new low-priced
menus directly com- pete for market share with MCD. It holds a unique position in the industry
as an old-fashioned eating place in the fast-food business and was recognized in 1986 as the most
favorite quality brand by ​QSR Magazine f​ or the second year in a row and earned first place for
customer satisfac- tion in the “limited service restaurants” category in that year’s American
Customer Satisfaction Index survey. With revenues of $2,450 million in 2007, Wendy’s
currently operates as a subsidiary of the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group, a private company.

Starbucks Corporation (SBX)

Even though Starbucks is no direct competition for MCD’s core business, MCD is now in the
fighting ring with Starbucks for the specialty coffee niche. Therefore it is important to view
Starbucks as a new direct competitor. Starbucks was founded in 1985 by Howard Schultz, who
recently came out of retirement to serve as chairman, CEO, and president. The company is
usually grouped with the high-priced, high-margins specialty eateries industry. Starbucks’ annual
rev- enues are $10.04 billion, less than half of MCD’s. Starbuck’s gross margins at 54.24 percent
are 17 percent points higher than McDonald’s. With 176,000 employees and strong brand
recognition, Starbucks is seen as a leader in the specialty eateries industry.

External Threats
Because of its global reach and brand recognition, MCD continues to face significant threats to
its aggressive growth strategy at home, one of which is the growing awareness among the
medical and scientific community as well as the public of the direct relationship between diet
and health. A joint research study recently conducted at the University of California, Berkeley,
and Columbia University and published in March 2009 concluded that the presence of a
fast-food restaurant within 500 feet of a school is associated with at least a 5.2 percent increase
in the obesity rate in that school, suggesting significant health benefits of banning fast-food
restaurants close to schools if communities are interested in fighting the growing epidemic of
obesity among young adolescents in America.

MCD continues to encounter lawsuits brought about around the world by activists and irate par-
ents of children less than 18 years of age. In 1990, in the McLibel Trial, also known as
McDonald’​ s ​Restaurants v. Morris & Steel​, activists from a small group known as London
Greenpeace with no affiliation with the Greenpeace organization printed and distributed
information under the title, “​What’s wrong with McDonald’s?” I​ n that printed information that
was widely circulated in London, they criticized MCD’s environmental, health, and labor record.
The corporation wrote to the group demanding them to retract and apologize, but when the two
key activists refused to back down, MCD sued them for libel. It turned out to be not only one of
the longest cases in British civil law, but it also turned out to be a public relations nightmare for
MCD. A documentary film capturing this saga con- tinues to been shown in several countries,
including the United States.

MCD’s premises continue to draw antiglobalization activists from around the world. In 1999,
French activist José Bové vandalized a half-built McDonald’s to protest against the introduction
of fast food in the region. As recently as 2009, activists vandalized MCD’s restaurants during the
G-20 summit in protest of the poverty and income inequalities brought about by globalization.

The documentary film, ​Super Size Me,​ which argued that MCD’s menu was contributing to the
obesity epidemic and that the company provided no nutritional information about its products,
caught MCD executive’s attention quickly. Within six weeks after the film’s debut, MCD
eliminated the supersize option from its meal options.

In April 2006, the global activist organization Greenpeace alleged that MCD, as a client of the
agricultural behemoth Cargill, was contributing to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest in
Brazil and the invasion of the indigenous people’s lands when it bought chickens fed with
Brazilian soya. Furthermore, global activists argue that MCD’s operations overburden scarce
drinking water supply away from the poor local communities by diverting it to the frivolous
production of supplies to support MCD.

Unfavorable changes on the sociopolitical, legal, and environmental fronts at home and over-
seas as well as currency rates may adversely affect MCD without prior notice. Cost of supplies
may

increase cutting into MCD’s gross margins as is evident from its income statement (Exhibit 8).
Total operating costs and expenses increased rose from about $16.5 billion in 2006 to $18.9
billion in 2007. Foreign currency translation losses displayed in Exhibit 1 show the extent of
damage that global companies like MCD encounter due to the uncertainties in the global
environment that no one has control over. In February 2009, MCD cut prices of its popular menu
items in China by as much as 40 percent to reverse declining sales.

Conclusion

Success today is no guarantee for success tomorrow. However, McDonald’s added 40 restaurants
in India in 2008 and another 25 in 2009. Although people in India are predominantly Hindu and
revere the cow, thus eating no beef, they love McDonald’s, especially Chicken McNuggets,
which were first introduced in India in May 2009. MCD’s vegetable patties also are a big hit now
in India.

For the second quarter, which ended June 30, 2009, MCD had positive global comparable sales
in every area of the world, as well as higher revenues, operating income, and earnings per share
com- pared with the prior year. “We’re driving results by staying focused on our global business
strategy, the Plan to Win,” said Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner. “As consumers find
themselves more cash-strapped and time-challenged, they continue to count on McDonald’s for
value, convenience, and variety across our menu.” MCD’s second quarter 2009 results included
global comparable sales up 4.8% with the United States up 3.5%, Europe up 6.9%, and
Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa up 4.4% McDonald’s Europe delivered strong second
quarter comparable sales led by performance in the U.K., France, and Russia. In Asia/Pacific,
Middle East, and Africa (APMEA), Australia led the segment’s second quarter operating income
increase of 34% in constant currencies.

Exhibit 9 provides mid-year 2009 MCD financials: