Company Background and Introduction .
Based in Oak Brook, Illinois, McDonald's Corporation is a family-oriented fast-food restaurant company. Since 1950s, McDonald's has revolutionized the fast-food business and has become one of the best and most well-known restaurant in the world. It serves 46 million customers at more than 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries everyday. .
In 1948, brothers Dick and Mac McDonald ran a drive-in restaurant with limited menu in San Bernardino, California. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a 52-year-old milkshake machine salesman, visited the restaurant and became amazed how great it was. He convinced the McDonald brothers to let him sell McDonald's franchises. Kroc opened his first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois in 1955. The McDonald brothers sold the company to Kroc for $2.7 million in 1961. .
Besides doing business, McDonald's did some charities to give back to the communities. In 1974 the company opened the first Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The main purpose of Ronald McDonald House was to provide temporary housing for families of critically ill children who needed to stay in hospitals. Today, Ronald McDonald House Charities operate more than 200 houses in 19 countries. .
Strength .
Product Strategy.
From the original McDonald's restaurant operated by brothers Dick and Mac in San Bernardino, California in 1948, there were only nine items on the menu: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, three types of soft drinks, milk, coffee, potato chips, and pies. Soon French fries and milkshakes were added. In 1968 McDonald's restaurants began serving the Big Mac, a two-patty burger that became the company's flagship product and it was developed by Jim Delligatti who operated a dozen stores in Pittsburgh by the late 1960s. In 1973 McDonald's began serving breakfast. By the late 1980s, one-fourth of Americans who ate breakfast away from home did so at McDonald's.