Reducing the use of Antibiotics
Mcdonals and Enviromental Defense in 2003 establised a partnership to create a new
Purchasing policy to cut the use of antibiotics in poultry production. To create the policy,Mcdonalds worked with a various organizations that had a considerable stake in the process, including drug manufacturers, academic scientists and members of the medical community.
There are two major objectives of the partnership:
Retain eficacy of antibiotics for human health.
Responsible use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.
Result:
A global purchasing policy for McDonald's was created that:
- Reduced an estimated 17,900 pounds of antibiotics used annually by McDonald's suppliers
- In 2006 McDonald's top supplier, Tyson Corporate, announced that it had reduced antibiotic use by over 90% and the top four poultry companies in the U.S. all reported eliminating the use of human antibiotics to promote growth in chickens
- We estimate that a total of 223,600 pounds of antibiotics have been reduced from poultry producers in the US since we completed the McDonald's partnership
- Eliminated the use of medically important antibiotics as growth promoters in poultry
- Outlined clear guidelines for the appropriate use of antibiotics
- Created a purchasing preferences for suppliers who further reduced antibiotics use
- Created a program for certification of supplier compliance
http://innovation.edf.org
McCafé: Strategic Innovation at McDonald's
While Starbucks and Burger King have been suffering this year, global sales have been increasing for seven months in a row at McDonald's.
Thewho-what-how modelof strategic innovation can be applied to illustrate what McDonald's did.How exactly is the McCafé a strategic innovation?
Let's have a look at the definition of Strategic Innovation again. Strategic Innovation is about:
- newbusiness models(including a new value chain architecture), or
- newmarkets(either by creating new ones or reshaping existing ones), or
- increasedvaluefor both the customer and the company or a combination of these three.
Let's start with the new market: McCafé not only represents a new market for McDonald's, but looking at the customers of McCafés, one can see that they tap on new customers as well. First people who would not go to a McDonald's can be seen in restaurants now. For example parents who might just have gone in because their kids wouldn't stop begging, now enjoy a coffee along a piece of cake, while the youngsters are having a BigMac.
And the youngsters tend to stay longer in the restaurants as well, having a latte after the McMeal. McCafés are a blend between Starbucks and a regular McDonald's, with a cozier atmosphere than the regular McDonald's store. At the same time the coffee is cheaper than at Starbucks. So McDonald's is tapping into a market who can not afford, or is not willing to afford, a Starbucks coffee.
With the new design of McCafés they can still enjoy a little bit of 3rd place compared to a Burger King for example, which clearly respresents increased value for the customer and McDonald's at the same time, as it is profiting not only from the increased sales, but also the "better" image it is gaining among new and existing customer groups.
As for the new business model: the new store layout with combined restaurants and McCafés, or the new stand alone McCafés, are a new way of delivering value to the customers. The new layout and atmosphere invite people to linger in the shop for an extended period of time (like at Starbucks), instead of just hoping in for a quick bite (like you do at any regular fast food restaurant).
How can you use existing assets (like McDonald's used its locations) to create new value for existing customers or create a new market altogether?
(http://www.sevenprophets.com/2009/08/mccaf%C3%A9-strategic-innovation-at-mcdonalds.html)
Technological Innovation used by Mcdonalds
McDonald's to offer free Wi-Fi in restaurants
The fast food chain McDonald's is to introduce free high speed wireless internet access at most of its 1,200 restaurants by the end of the year in a move which will make it the UK's biggest provider of such a service.
Customers will be able to go online via their laptops, compatible mobile phones and games consoles for hours on end if they wish. The initiative goes a step further than existing services offered by some coffee shops and cafes, which provide Wi-Fi hotspots but charge users a fee.
McDonald's said its service would benefit a wide range of customers, from business people making a "pit stop" to check email between meetings to those looking for a leisurely break at the weekend to download music. It claimed a hotspot user who pays to log on for just an hour a week in a coffee shop could stand to save as much as £260 a year on premium Wi-Fi charges by using McDonald's free service. It has already introduced the free scheme in 8,000 of its 13,000 outlets in the US.
The company's president and chief executive officer, Steve Easterbrook, said: "We hope that this will be a breath of fresh air and give greater choice for Wi-Fi hotspot users who have had little choice but to pay by the month or hour to access the internet on the move." Faced with the prospect of young people spending hours surfing the net after buying just a single cup of coffee, a spokesman for McDonald's said: "We would be comfortable with that. There will be no restrictions."
The editor of Computing, Bryan Glick, said: "The future of technology is in secure, wireless, mobile, go-anywhere computers and anything that helps people achieve that is a step in the right direction."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/oct/06/internet
Websites
- http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company.html visited on 10 -12-2009
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcdonalds visited on 10-12-2009
- http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/aboutus/history.aspx visited on 10-12-2009.
- http://www.sevenprophets.com/2009/08/mccaf%C3%A9-strategic-innovation-at-mcdonalds.html visited 10-12-2009
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/oct/06/internet Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent The Guardian, Saturday 6October 2007
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1616_fastfood/page9.shtml
Biblography
- The sign of the burger: McDonald's and the culture of power
