Of course, MCD can change its image. It has already changed its image but for the negative. We are not the MCD of the 60's, 70's our image today is far different from that previous image. Customer perceptions of nuturtion and obesity, children's advertising and wage rates are issues that have turned MCD image upside down. So much of our image is directly related to our products. Changing our products will help change our image. Being a huge international corporation with billions of dollars of profit today is seen with a negative connotation. Profit and Capitalism has been portrayed as bad for society. This is not the fault of MCD it is just the way many people think. Plus, we are a global leader and a convenient and easy target. It comes with the position. These social/political images we little control over. However, our products, employee relations, community relations are things we can change and talk about. But, people believe what they want to believe and there will always be negative publicity deserved or not.
As I see it they are still going after customers we will never acquire and ignoring our core customers completely. I have the worst consultants and leadership we’ve ever encountered. They bully and intimidate operators into submission with threats to pull franchises.
If you have received a threat from the region to cancel your franchise without a bill of particulars from the MCD legal department and you can document that fact you may be able to have them fired or at least transfered so you are not dealing with them. In this region some regional employee's have suggested that an operator would not be eligable growth if they didn't do certain things. This created a "fire Storm" and resulted in the clear understanding that the only person in the regional office authorized to use the terms "eligable" or "ineligable" is the regional manager or the qsc vp.
If regional employee's including the regional manager is threating operators with pulling the franchise you can cause a lot of problems for them.
Oh yes, McD's legal department is shaking in their boots waiting for an operator to cause problems for them. Go ahead, make their day! Oh, you could go to your ombudsman, but that's the kiss of death. The bottom line: you have a 20 year license, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, you have to live with it or leave the system.
The McDonald's "expandability" criteria has evolved over the years. Prior to Franchise 2000 (implemented in 1996) an Operator could be unexpandable and still get a rewrite on another store. F2K made expandability and rewritability one criteria. This gave McDonald's much more power to refuse rewrites and increased control over Operators.
An unexpected result of this change has been that many McDonald's corporate employees think that if an Operator is not expandable and rewrtiable the Operator is in breach of their franchise.
How can they be that dumb? I'm sure this corresponds with the decreasing quality and experience of McDonald's employees but if I've heard such a story once I've heard it a thousand times.
This misconception has turned many lower level McDonald's employees into even bigger bullies when dealing with Operators.
5 comments:
Of course, MCD can change its image. It has already changed its image but for the negative. We are not the MCD of the 60's, 70's our image today is far different from that previous image. Customer perceptions of nuturtion and obesity, children's advertising and wage rates are issues that have turned MCD image upside down. So much of our image is directly related to our products. Changing our products will help change our image. Being a huge international corporation with billions of dollars of profit today is seen with a negative connotation. Profit and Capitalism has been portrayed as bad for society. This is not the fault of MCD it is just the way many people think. Plus, we are a global leader and a convenient and easy target. It comes with the position. These social/political images we little control over. However, our products, employee relations, community relations are things we can change and talk about. But, people believe what they want to believe and there will always be negative publicity deserved or not.
As I see it they are still going after customers we will never acquire and ignoring our core customers completely. I have the worst consultants and leadership we’ve ever encountered. They bully and intimidate operators into submission with threats to pull franchises.
If you have received a threat from the region to cancel your franchise without a bill of particulars from the MCD legal department and you can document that fact you may be able to have them fired or at least transfered so you are not dealing with them. In this region some regional employee's have suggested that an operator would not be eligable growth if they didn't do certain things. This created a "fire Storm" and resulted in the clear understanding that the only person in the regional office authorized to use the terms "eligable" or "ineligable" is the regional manager or the qsc vp.
If regional employee's including the regional manager is threating operators with pulling the franchise you can cause a lot of problems for them.
Oh yes, McD's legal department is shaking in their boots waiting for an operator to cause problems for them. Go ahead, make their day! Oh, you could go to your ombudsman, but that's the kiss of death. The bottom line: you have a 20 year license, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, you have to live with it or leave the system.
The McDonald's "expandability" criteria has evolved over the years. Prior to Franchise 2000 (implemented in 1996) an Operator could be unexpandable and still get a rewrite on another store. F2K made expandability and rewritability one criteria. This gave McDonald's much more power to refuse rewrites and increased control over Operators.
An unexpected result of this change has been that many McDonald's corporate employees think that if an Operator is not expandable and rewrtiable the Operator is in breach of their franchise.
How can they be that dumb? I'm sure this corresponds with the decreasing quality and experience of McDonald's employees but if I've heard such a story once I've heard it a thousand times.
This misconception has turned many lower level McDonald's employees into even bigger bullies when dealing with Operators.
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