At the beginning, the SWOT analysis is a scientific analysis method used to

determine an enterprise's own competitive advantages, disadvantages, external

market opportunities and threats, so as to organically combine the company's
strategy with internal resources and external environment. At first, in this case, the
strength of McDonald is that the strong brand value, the diversified geographic
presence, and the large scale of operation. Everyone knows that the McDonald is
well-known in the fast-food chain in almost every country, and this strong brand
draws customers to the restaurants of the company and provides it acceptability in
new markets. Also, the diversified geographic presence provides opportunity to gain
from economic buoyancy in emerging markets, moreover, the large scale of
operation allows it to penetrate upcoming markets with relative ease and enhances
its revenue generation capacity. Second, the weakness of McDonald are the
unhealthy problem and the new product failures. With the rise in awareness of the
high fat content of most of the products offered by McDonald’s, the McDonald also
beginning to face lots of lawsuits from customers. Also, the new products failures led
to a significant increase in costs and longer preparation times. This forced the
McDonald to increase the prices of many of its products and to take more time to
serve customers. Third, the opportunities of McDonald are the growth of franchisee
operated restaurants and the developing of McCafes. Under the growing of selling off
the outlets, more than 80 percent of the outlets are now in the hands of franchisees
and other affiliates, those entrepreneurs can use their capital and local knowledge to
build the McDonald’s brand and optimize long-term sales. What’s more, the
developing of McCafes offer the company opportunities for expanding its hot drinks
and desserts revenue and express the idea that McDonald wants to be seen as a
new lifestyle brand. At last, the threats of McDonald are the intense competition in
retail fast food
McDonald's faces three problems, brand image, overly complex menus and
insufficient appeal to the younger generation.
First of all, McDonald's is famous for providing cheap and fast food. But in order to
create a healthier image to ease public growing concerns about health issues,
McDonald’s has added more vegetables and fruits to its food and provided a platform
for customized food. The increase in selling prices brought about by these actions
may lose some low-income customers, while the restrictions of customized food
make drive-through customers unable to enjoy complete customized services. In
order to solve this problem, the target customer group is divided into two categories.
The first is for customers who care more about price than health. For this group of
people, it is important to keep and appropriately update the "dollar value and more"
menu. At the same time, distributing coupons similar to salad products from time to
time may attract them to try healthier foods and finally retain them. The second is
customers who think McDonald’s food is unhealthy, but cannot fully use customized
services because of using drive-through services. For this group of people,
McDonald's needs to shorten product production time and help customers place
orders in advance through apps and other applications. Finally, through optimization,
Drive-through users can enjoy a complete customized service. At the same time,
McDonald's can also try to apply big data to find the most popular customized
products. And put these products on the daily menu for drive-through customers to
select.
Secondly, McDonald's has provided 121 items on the menu. But in fact, 30 percent of
sales come from just five items: Big Macs, hamburgers, cheese burgers, McNuggets,
and fries. It shows that most of the new products have not won the favor of
customers. Besides, the excessive expansion of the menu has led to increasing in
costs and longer preparation time. Therefore, McDonald's needs to simplify the
menu. Highlight popular items in the core menu, eliminate unpopular items, and allow
regional franchise groups to create local versions of menu items.
Thirdly, McDonald's is facing fierce competition. The younger generation is preferring
the competitors, and a survey shows that 20% of millennials have not even tried a
Big Mac. In order to improve the situation, McDonald can make their restaurant
appealing, contemporary, and relevant both from the street and interior by refreshing
the outlets. Also, McDonald's can provide freshly-baked muffins, high-end desserts
and high-quality coffee through its sub-brand “McCafe” to build a lifestyle brand. As a
result, McDonald's not only retains its original image of providing cheap and fast
food, but also differentiates and expands its image through sub-brands. At the same
time to meet the needs of the existing customer base, but also to attract the younger
generation. Besides, McDonald's needs to keep opening more outlets in small cities
with growth potential. They needs to combine high-quality standards with local needs
and provide products that better meet customer needs, so as to achieve its
multinational strategy that combines globalization and localization.