"Work with the Franchisee's..." will be interesting to watch. Little credibility remains with regional staff's. Regional managers are protecting their little kingdom's and resist any intrusion by the operators. Many department heads are just not competent or understand the franchisor/franchisee relationship. Most are very good adminstrators few are competent business people. Who are the company people who will work with the franchisees? Most company people know nothing of profitability, cash flow or principle payments/debt management. They have nothing at risk. They are sophomoric, idealistic, nieve and opinioniated. They won't hear anything new from the operators. We've been screaming about the solutions for years and they didn't listen then and won't listen now. Fix the food, be more involved in the community and trading areas, focus on the customer and making money. Profit cures a lot of problems. They will hear that most if not all of the problems are self inflected. Throw away all "clip boards" and forms. Get back to selling our once very good food. Forget "political correctness" with more profit pay more taxes and let the jerks in Washington worry about social change. Our job is to satisfy the customer and make money, lots of it. Cut corporate staff across the board by 30%. Forget MRP's, rebuilds, market share for five years. Crank up sales and cash flow and watch problems melt away.
You are correct. They way agreements are written and the entrenched management style of the regions leaves the operators near powerless. MCD wants 100% control and I didn't mind it when they knew what they were doing. However, as things evolved people were put into positions of authority that were not qualified or had personal agendas that had little to do with being a profitable business. "Change the corporate culture" MQM!! Take all the fat out of the food "McLean" Change the face of MCD so we look like an immigrant company. While all these efforts were underway customers were ignored, our food lost much of its appeal, sell toys instead of food, the operators are the problem, not marketing or tasteless food. We made it easy for low budget competitors to get a foothold. "What does the operator really do". We can only do what MCD will let us do. Nothing more. Therein lies a major problem. If they want to listen they will if they don't they won't. The three legged stool once drove the company but not any longer. Wall Street has much bigger influence than all the operators put together. Outside food critics, social critics and others have top management by the balls. Customers just want great food served fast but we do everything we can to make that difficult. Just a little over 30% of our customers use our lobbies and we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the lobby. 60% DT usage is growing and we improve the lobby. The only thing we can do is "HOPE" these new guys know what they are doing.
5 comments:
For meaningful change maybe they should talk "with" the Operators, not "at Us".
"Work with the Franchisee's..." will be interesting to watch. Little credibility remains with regional staff's. Regional managers are protecting their little kingdom's and resist any intrusion by the operators. Many department heads are just not competent or understand the franchisor/franchisee relationship. Most are very good adminstrators few are competent business people. Who are the company people who will work with the franchisees? Most company people know nothing of profitability, cash flow or principle payments/debt management. They have nothing at risk. They are sophomoric, idealistic, nieve and opinioniated. They won't hear anything new from the operators. We've been screaming about the solutions for years and they didn't listen then and won't listen now. Fix the food, be more involved in the community and trading areas, focus on the customer and making money. Profit cures a lot of problems. They will hear that most if not all of the problems are self inflected. Throw away all "clip boards" and forms. Get back to selling our once very good food. Forget "political correctness" with more profit pay more taxes and let the jerks in Washington worry about social change. Our job is to satisfy the customer and make money, lots of it. Cut corporate staff across the board by 30%. Forget MRP's, rebuilds, market share for five years. Crank up sales and cash flow and watch problems melt away.
Ok, I agree. But what you offer will not happen either. So the question really is, what does a operator really do?
a operator can't do it - groups of o/os can do a lot. Shut down opnad and ignore the NLC.
You are correct. They way agreements are written and the entrenched management style of the regions leaves the operators near powerless. MCD wants 100% control and I didn't mind it when they knew what they were doing. However, as things evolved people were put into positions of authority that were not qualified or had personal agendas that had little to do with being a profitable business. "Change the corporate culture" MQM!! Take all the fat out of the food "McLean" Change the face of MCD so we look like an immigrant company. While all these efforts were underway customers were ignored, our food lost much of its appeal, sell toys instead of food, the operators are the problem, not marketing or tasteless food. We made it easy for low budget competitors to get a foothold. "What does the operator really do". We can only do what MCD will let us do. Nothing more. Therein lies a major problem. If they want to listen they will if they don't they won't. The three legged stool once drove the company but not any longer. Wall Street has much bigger influence than all the operators put together. Outside food critics, social critics and others have top management by the balls. Customers just want great food served fast but we do everything we can to make that difficult. Just a little over 30% of our customers use our lobbies and we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the lobby. 60% DT usage is growing and we improve the lobby. The only thing we can do is "HOPE" these new guys know what they are doing.
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