Resources and Capabilities of McDonald

Introduction

As one of the leading companies in the world and invading every country, there is no doubt that McDonald is the leader in fast food industry. This fact has been proven for so many years and this will not happen if the company did not apply any strategies with their resources and calculating their capabilities.

The strategy may come in planning in the business setting. The process of developing and maintaining the goals and capabilities is reflected to its changing marketing opportunities. The corporate strategy lays in their institutional mission, supporting goals and objectives, an appropriate implementation (Leverett, Parker, and McDonald, 2007).

Resources and Capabilities of McDonald

For the company, the strategy is concerned with matching a firm’s resources and capabilities to the opportunities that arise in the external environment. The resources and capabilities of a company are considered as a strategy. The increasing emphasis on the role of resources and capabilities as the basis for strategy may come in to two factors. First, the industry where the firm belongs became unstable and so the internal resources and capabilities of the firm are given more focus in formulating strategies. And second, the combination of the resources and capabilities of the firm became the superior competitive advantage and profitability (Yan, 2007).

The connection between the resource and capabilities of a firm in the area of business makes a competitive advantage. It is because the capabilities and resources allow the organization to create value and gain some form of advantage from the rivals. The capabilities and resources may include the degree of business cycle literacy of the top of management team; deployment of various forecasting resources; a facilitative organizational structure that facilitates timely acquisition, processing, and dissemination of macroeconomic information as well as timely decision making relative to rivals; the observable application of a set of business cycle-sensitive management principles; an a supportive organizational culture that supports the firm’s management activities (Navarro, 2005).

Capabilities as Routine

McDonald applied an essential step in translating directions and operating practices into capabilities. The idea of routine in every McDonald such as operating manuals that provides precise directions for the conduct of every activity. In the continuous practice or repetition, the operating manuals are referred in the course of day-to-day operations, the tasks become a routine. In addition, this allows the McDonald’s outlets worldwide to produce the standard fast food products. The successful firms used the knowledge as part of the fundamental transformation in their enterprises. Moreover, the McDonald’s and other companies pioneered the transformation through systematization which is appropriate in their processes (Yan, 2007).

If the routines develop learning by-doing, and this was supported by the knowledge, then, the idea of systematization is easy. The idea of systematization underlies in the capability of the standard operating procedures of one company to disseminate in all over the outlets or branches the McDonalds may have. The business system that the company has is guided by the operating procedures and training manuals that governs the operation and maintenance of each restaurant. The idea of systematization presumes that the firm can more fully articulate the processes as part of its capabilities.

With concern of knowledge management, McDonald’s companies are primarily implementing the McDonald’s system. The essence of systematization of knowledge is followed by every outlet with a detailed set of rules. Therefore, the operating practices became part of every employee and given a thorough attention from the management through the training programs.

Resource-Based View

Corporations are different; most of them have the ability to undergo the risk of rapid changes. And in their recognition to the human resources and investments, corporation still have the ability to create cooperative and productive behavior, despite of the massive agency and organizational costs. The resource-based view approach enables the firm to have unique resources and capabilities and used as an advantage to excel in the marketplace. This influential approach defines the capabilities as the firm’s core resources, which makes the firm as a whole. The capabilities lie within a firm’s infrastructure, reflect both the firm’s human resources and routines which is most of all, difficult to duplicate or replicate by the competitors (Chatterji and Richman, 2008).

Conclusion

Some corporations are good on what they do and some thinking creatively to acquire remarkably good. The strategies applied by different firms, although different, starts on what the corporations must do and enable them to learn what is necessary. In some other case, the corporations give way to the existence of the corporate resources and capabilities that can e harnessed for admirable objectives. As McDonald faced new challenges, the system for managing the knowledge, emphasizing the product development and sharing the system made a success in food improvement, teams, and corporate goals.

References:

Chatterji, A., & Richman, B., 2008. Understanding the “Corporate” in Corporate Social Responsibility. Harvard Law & policy Review, Vol. 2. [Online] Available at: http://www.hlpronline.com/Chatterji_Richman_HLPR.pdf. [Accessed 25 Jan 2010].

Leverett, A., Parker, D., & McDonald, M., 2007. Using a Marketing Approach to Improve Recruitment Retention of African-American Students in a BBA Program. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1. The DreamCatchers Group, LLC.

Navarro, P., 2005. The Well-Timed Strategy: Managing the Business Cycle. California Management Review, Vol. 48, No. 1. [Online] Available at: http://web.gsm.uci.edu/~navarro/Vita05/JA%201%20Well-Timed%20Strategy.pdf. [Accessed 25 Jan 2010].

Yan, L., 2007. Analyzing Resources and Capabilities [Online] Available at: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/grant/files/CSAC05.pdf. [Accessed 25 Jan 2010].