How McDonald’s is preparing its Digital Transformation

@dadovanpeteghem @sdwouters

McDonald’s is among the best known brands in the world as it is the largest chain of fast-food restaurants. It has ~69M daily customers in 36K restaurants across 119 countries.

It once started out as the disruptor in its industry. With innovations in standardization, experience in

menu and restaurant design and marketing.

Over the past years, McDonald’s has been facing new challenges, such as the heavy pressure to be more transparent

about their food and processes.

Meanwhile some of the competition has been heavily investing in digital, while McDonald’s

mostly remained at the sideline. It allowed others like Starbucks and Subway to take the lead.

“We were late coming to the party, but we will catch up and accelerate.” ~Don Thompson, Former CEO McDonald’s

“Right now, there’s a high tolerance for risk. The company is seeking progress over perfection. If we want everything to be just right, we’ll never quite get there. So let’s get out there and try things, let’s test things. We can fail fast and spot the successes and scale fast.”~Steve Easterbrook, CEO of McDonald’s

The man hired to lead the change, Atif Rafiq, is a former Amazon and Yahoo executive and now Chief Digital Officer

at McDonald’s since 2013.

He is busy preparing McDonald’s for the

digital age and while his plans are still developing, here is what McDonald’s is doing in digital so far.

"Our objective is to be ready to move at the

pace consumers are.”

It has a Digital Transformation team of about 20 employees, coming from

Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, PayPal, AOL, and various other tech companies.

The team is set to grow to 200-250 employees within the next year.

It has started its own digital offices in San Francisco and Chicago, where

it plans to re-invent the customer experience in the digital age.

While the competition looks at how pizza chains let their customers

order through mobile, McDonald’s is getting its inspiration from start-ups and big tech companies and

wants to work with them.

McDonald’s was a sponsor of SXSW 2015, an event

that focuses on innovation.

It was among the first companies to accept Apple

Pay, and the only one to offer it in Drive-through.

Its pilot coupon app offers coupons that will only stay valid for a few minutes.

It is also working on its mobile ordering app, while testing a fast lane

for mobile orders in its restaurants.

Each restaurant will have a standardized set of hardware and

software by 2020, including things like beacons and various NFC applications.

One of these applications is the smart dinner table,

which turns the restaurant tables into mobile games.

Check the video

Following the lead of Starbucks, McDonald’s is piloting wireless charging spots as an additional way

to attract customers to hop into their restaurants.

While McDonald’s realized the threats and opportunities of digital rather late, it is now taking strong action to remain competitive. Have you looked at the digital competition

and innovation in your sector yet?

Our book on Digital Transformation can help you to anticipate disruption and take your

future in your own hands.

digitaltransformationbook.com

jo@dearmedia.be+32 475 43 80 98

dado@dearmedia.be+32 474 82 68 07

Need help in your own Digital Transformation journey?