Coalition of Franchisee Associations

August 4, 2018

Deep McThoughts

Paging through "Behind the Arches" it occurred to me that - if we use 1955 as the starting 
date for the McDonald's system - the company is 63 years old. The book was published (plus/minus a couple of years) half way through the company's life. 

The book describes the founding and the first 30 years of entrepreneurial growth.

The second half of McDonald's history has been all about enriching McDonald's shareholders and impressing Wall Street analysts.

That book has yet to be written.
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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

The operators are disgusted with the expenditures and the havoc all of the initiatives that are being forced on us are causing with our restaurants and our people. The cash flow that we were promised is not even close with little improvement in sight.

Anonymous said...

First, the new Field Office Program is confusing at best. I have nobody to call yet on issues. Second, they let go people with the knowledge and experience in both marketing and field service. Third, McDonald’s has still not figured out the logistics of getting technology installed. Fourth, after the disaster with sales and marketing in Q1, I have little confidence
that they have figured out how to implement the rollout of the Field Office approach. So I am looking at chaos going forward.

Anonymous said...

This roll out of the "Field Office" concept is not going well. Those in charge of it in the field have no real coaching or understanding of what it is supposed to look like when fully implemented. We have 13 different people who can come into stores unannounced to shop our operations. As of this time they have no ID's and managers don't know who to let behind the front counter. However, this situation gives operators the opportunity to take control of the business without a primary regional office. Those shopping stores have no consistent level of knowledge of priorities. They are more confused than the operators. Operators can absolutely take charge of things while the inspectors argue among themselves. Clearly a cost savings for the company. Regional operations will suffer in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

I highly doubt there will ever be another MOA. The Suits of McD know that they have the Lawyers, money and time on there side. The Operators of today feel they have to much to lose when it comes to 2nd & 3rd gens, Restaurant Value and overall wealth. The go for broke Operators of the 70’s, like Max Cooper have all passed away.

So we are left being represented by a Group of Operators that we did not VOTE for as a body, that are only able to Advise and Consent to Chicago, and finally would never call for any civil disobedience by the Operator body as a whole.

Where does that leave us as an Operator body, Splintered, Questioning, Beaten Down and disillusioned? Most of the Operators that are left due to the consolidation of the last 2 years have been wildly successful, but the truth is we are too successful to Rock the Boat. The question is will our Collective Boats be dashed on the rocks of a Corporate storm of Debt, Over Ambitious Ideas and Leadership with to little experience to work along side Operators. Only time will tell.

Anonymous said...

The only thing any O/O needs to know how to do is to fill out a loan application and borrow money. You already signed your EOTF document to late to ask questions. These folks will all be gone in a few years and we all will be left with millions in an additional debt, no ROI, only way to generate sales, discount, discount and more discounting that is OPNAD's only tactic to generate TC's.

Anonymous said...

Not sure how many folks reading this blog have 30 or more restaurants but many of those folks have no choice but to follow OPNAD's bad plans, they have so much on the line with debt, any slight hiccup in sales they will be teetering on BK it will be interesting to see how the corporation handles big organizations in the future that have taken on to much debt. The current EOTF plan in a certain plan for some organizations to enetr bankruptcy the writing is on the wall and to signature is on your docusign.

Anonymous said...

A previous Operator comment said it best;

Mcd WANTS

They have carved the Heart & Soul out of this business and ATE it.

They want more kid business, then Fire Ronald McDonald.
They want more family business ,then remove playlands
They want faster D/Ts, then add to the McCafe menu and Add fresh beef.
They want higher Cash Flow, then add Labor to the Dining room to teach people how to use a Kiosk, and do table service.
They want better Operations, then let Operators grow to 20, 30, 40 & 50 Stores.
They want us to give Gold Standard everything, Yet their Communication & Technology is No Standard (total failure)
They want us to give Table Service, yet I would be happy to have people just to give Service.
They want Better Advertising, but Create an Ad Agency from 2 Old Dried Up ones.

Anonymous said...

McDonalds has just fired RMS effective year end 2018. Guess RMS wasnt doing McDs bidding on pricing !

Anonymous said...

Debt Service will be the achilles heel for many operators. Too much debt will drag operator income and equity down for many years. Take as big of an equity position as possible on any financing. Those with little equity will be crushed in any economic downturn for the MCD system. I had one Banker tell me that MCD is encouraging loans to operators even when they don't meet long established MCD standards. The management guideline is "Performance over standards" That is get the stores MRP's done regardless of financial impact. Same with diversity get minorities in regardless. One Banker told me they turned down $114,000,000.00 in loan requests from operators because they did not meet MCD historial standards and MCD raised hell with them. They have brought in the Bank of Montreal and told them to build their bank of business. "OPERATORS BEWARE".

Richard Adams said...

But, if the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of McDonald's Operators in the USA that's a great way to get the job done. After the Operators pay for improvements to the corporate real estate portfolio and have to exit the system the corporate folks can just tell everyone the former Operators "made bad business decisions".
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Anonymous said...

Right, MCD still uses the "net debt" ratio when considering expansion.

Anonymous said...

McDonald’s wants no discussion to help make decisions on changes, menu, etc. They just want us to agree.