Report on setting up a mcdonalds franchise in UK

Report on setting up a mcdonalds franchise in UK McDonalds has been proved as successful business through the globe for quite some time now. This report aims at exploring the business potential in setting up a McDonald franchise by researching into its franchise structure. It gives information about the terms and conditions for becoming the McDonalds franchise along with the brief history of its business. It focuses on the strength and weakness of the business and discusses the macro environmental factors that may affect the franchise business. I had further focused on any problem that may arise during the functioning of the franchise and performed a VRIO analysis to check the sustainability of the business. The report end with a brief conclusion about the entire report suggestion whether it is beneficial to go ahead with the project. Introduction The fast food business is fast growing business in the UK and when talking about fast food most often the first name comes to the mind is the McDonalds. It has been a very successful business in its category for a long time now. This report discusses about setting up a franchise of McDonalds in UK and the pro and cons of owning a McDonald franchise. McDonalds has been making profits and is growing even in the current economic downturn. The figure below shows the growth of McDonald over the last year. Figure: McDonalds Historical stock chart (advfn.com, 2010) The above figure shows clear growth of the company selected to invest in getting franchise for. The growth also triggered an interest in researching for getting an franchise for McDonald and get good returns on the investment. This section is divided in to two where the first give a brief account of McDonalds business history while the later discusses the terms and condition for setting up a franchise. The data collection is majorly done from the McDonalds cooperate and associate websites. The later sections discuss the SWOT analysis and the VRIO and finally the report concludes with conclusion and recommendations. McDonalds brief history McDonalds was started by the Dick and Mac McDonald in 1940 in San Bernandino in California. It was a typical drive-in featuring a large menu and car hop services. It started as a barbeque restaurant but in 1948 the actual McDonalds was launched when McDonald brothers shut their restaurant for alterations. The menu was reduced to nine items and staple of the menu was the 15 cent hamburger. Within a year the potato chips were replaced by the world famous French fries. Through its history McDonalds kept on evolving and capturing the expectations of its customers. In 1954 a multi-mixer salesman Ray Kroc met Mc brother to sell his mixers but was fascinated by the operations. The following year in 1955 he opened the first franchise of McDonalds in Des Plaines, Illinois and by 1965 there were over 700 McDonalds restaurant through out United States. In 1958 McDonalds sold its 100 millionth hamburger and by 1959 the 100th McDonald restaurant was opened. In 1965 McDonald celebrated its 10th an niversary with its first public stock offering at $22.5 per share. 1966 saw the first TV commercial of McDonald featuring Ronald McDonald who became an instant hit. In 1967 first McDonald restaurant opened in Canada and Puerto Rico and at present it is having its presence in 118 countries. Over time McDonald kept launching products that gain individual brand images like the Big Mac, quarter pounder and happy meal. The first McDonalds restaurant in Britain opened in Woolwich, south-east London, in 1974 (mcspotlight.org, 2010). In 1978 5000th restaurant was opened in Japan and two years later it celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 1996 McDonald went online as its internet site macdonald.com was launched. McDonald has been evolving rapid in terms of product, technology and organisational strength over the years. McDonald Franchise operation The fast food industry has grown many folds in recent years with many new international and local chains competing with each other. Operating a fast food restaurant has many factors to be considered right from its competitors to the demographics and socio- cultural factors concerning its customers. In case of McDonalds the big brand name and massive advertising may help running the franchise but the most important is obtaining a franchise license. McDonalds people are very concerned about their customers and therefore very careful about whom they choose to serve their customers. The financial terms and conditions involving a McDonald franchise are as follows; The typical cost for owning a McDonalds restaurant ranges from  £125,000 to  £325,000. The investor are required to provide at least 25% of the value as unencumbered funds, the remaining 75% can be funded through a bank loan with favourable funding terms (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). Theres also a one-off franchise fee of  £30,000 and a training deposit of  £5,000 which is refunded when you complete your training (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). There are also ongoing fees. These include: Monthly rent on the premises, based on sales and profitability (usually ranging from 10% to 15%) Service Fee for use of the McDonalds system 5% of sales Contribution to the national marketing spend, currently 4.5% (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). And the returns? Cashflow (before debt repayment) typically ranges from  £95,000 to  £200,000 per year for each restaurant but this isnt guaranteed: it could be more, it could be less (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). Apart from the above terms and conditions the common questions arise about the benefit the investors get. The investors get equipment and license to operate from a location for a fix term and investors buy the profitability of the business. The McDonalds management expect its franchise owners to actively participate in the daily business of the restaurant and the franchise owners are not allowed to sell their ownership to other person without the managements permission. SWOT Analysis of McDonalds McDonalds has been a successfully evolving business since 1955 and almost half of the top corporate staff employees started as a restaurant level employee. Fortune Magazine 2005 listed McDonalds as the Best Place to Work for Minorities.(McDonalds fact sheet, 2007) The franchise owners and their staff are also required to undergo training in McDonalds. Moreover it invests around a billion USD in training its staff every year. Strengths McDonalds was ranked number one in Fortune Magazines 2008 list of most admired food service companies. One of the worlds most recognizable logos (the Golden Arches) and spokes character (Ronald McDonald the clown). Attractive McDonalds packaging are so popular among the children that according to the Packard Childrens Hospitals Centre research concluded that children age 3 to 5 prefer food given in McDonald packaging over the food without packaging. McDonalds bears a high corporate social responsibility value. They own Ronald McDonald House facilities providing very low cost room and board, food and sibling support for families with children needing extensive hospital care.They also sponsor Olympic athletes and local teams. It is global company that operates more than 23,500 restaurants in 118 countries. Their diversified presence gives them the ability to withstand economic fluctuations which are localized by country. They are very good in adapting to local cultural appeal and requirements. For example, they dont sell beef products in India and facilitate separate entranceto male and females in Middle East, as well serving Halal meat in Muslim dominated regions in UK as well. They are globally present in all major airports, and cities, along the highways, tourist locations, theme parks and inside shopping mall. Locations are selected with careful consideration and selecting the busiest locations possible. They have an efficient, assembly line style of food preparation. In addition they have a systemization and duplication of all their food prep processes in every restaurant (marketingteacher.com, 2010). McDonalds ensures strict compliance with the food quality used in its restaurants and invest producing fresh farm products. The external products used by McDonalds like cheese, yogurt, mayo etc are from top brands who ensure strict quality measures like Kraft Cheese, Nestle Chocolate, Dasani Water, Newmans Own Salad Dressings, Heinz Ketchup, Minute Maid Juice. McDonalds pioneered the provision of printed nutrition fact of its products on its packages. McDonalds offers salads, fruit, roasted chicken, bottled water and other low fat and calorie conscious alternatives. McDonalds has grown into a very big and trustworthy brand worldwide and especially in UK and US so opening a franchise in UK comes with the added advantage of the brand name which help getting the customers easily. McDonalds invests a large amount in advertising in print and motion media thus making life easier for its franchise. Weaknesses McDonalds venture into pizza making failed badly affecting their ability to compete with fast food pizza chains. They have yet to capitalize on the trend towards organic foods. McDonalds have problems with fluctuations in operating and net profits which ultimately impact investor relations. From the perspective of franchisee the problem they have to face is that they cannot use their owned property to run a franchise if it nota site of interest to McDonalds. In that case they have to bear an additional sum for renting place offered by McDonalds. Opportunities The current UK generation is more attracted towards healty or low calorie food thus McDonalds has a very good chance introduce healthy or low calorie hamburgers. Provide optional allergen free food items, such as gluten free and peanut free. It has a great scope in introduce hot beverages along with healthy breakfast option helping it compete with coffee shops and other fast food restaurants. Threats Their marketing to children often attracts criticism from parent advocate groups questioning their ethics. In Britain, McDonalds has infamously registered itself in to the record books for fighting the longest-ever libel suit in the country (mcspotlight.org, 2010). High food safety standards need to be maintained even a small contamination issue can land them in trouble. The other threats are from major international fast food restaurant chains like KFC, Burger King and Subway etc. Apart from the big names it faces potential threat from the local fried chicken chains. In order to decide on investing in the franchise a VRIO analysis of McDonald is done in the next section to test the sustainability of the venture. VRIO Analysis for McDonald franchise in UK VRIO stands for Value, rarity, Imitability and organisational support where Value is the firm ability to neutralise external threats using resources and capabilities. Rarity is control if resources in the hands of few while imitability is the difficulty to imitate in any way. Value: Mc Donald hold a high value in accordance to its brand image and exploitation of the available resources which had helped it evolved successfully for more than five decades. Rarity: The utility of the resource may be franchise oriented and spread through its breadth but the main control still remains in the hands of the top 50 management authorities. The franchisee has to follow the company rules strict to run a franchise of McDonalds. Imitability: McDonald may not be difficult to imitate in aspect of the product but its functionality is very difficult to achieve. Organisation support: McDonalds is always ready to exploit new resource and evolve and the organisation structure is well organised and provides a good support to its franchise operations. Value Rarity Imitability Organization Competitive implications Network infrastructure Yes Yes No Yes Temporary competitive advantage Diversified revenue base Yes Yes No Yes Temporary competitive advantage Leading market position Yes Yes Yes Yes Sustained competitive advantage The VRIO framework of McDonalds Looking at the above VRIO frame it can be said that McDonald has a sustainable competitive advantage and thus it seem to be vice decision to invest in the project. Conclusion The report deals with the franchise operation of McDonald and UK was selected as the location for the franchise. UK was selected on basis of the brand image and success of the franchise network of McDonalds. It has a very good customer base in UK which are very loyal as well. McDonald has good organisational support to its franchise in terms of training and publicity. It also operates a centralized recruitment drive which helps the franchise to get desired employees without having a headache to hunt for them. The SWOT analysis reveals a large number of strengths as well good opportunities to work on thus large scope to increase profitability. The VRIO analysis also indicates a competitive sustainability thus it is recommended to invest in the project.

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were introduced outside the Andes region four centuries ago, and have become an integral part of much of the world's cuisine. It is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat and maize. 1] Long-term storage of potatoes requires specialised care in cold warehouses. [2] Wild potato species occur throughout the Americas, from the United States to southern Chile. [3] The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in multiple locations,[4] but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia (from a species in the So lanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago. 5][6][7] Following centuries of selective breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. [6] Of these subspecies, a variety that at one point grew in the Chiloe Archipelago (the potato's south-central Chilean sub-center of origin) left its germplasm on over 99% of the cultivated potatoes worldwide. [8][9] The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the 21st century included about 33 kg (73 lb) of potato. 1] However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato-producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India. [10]

The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Use of Computers in Tertiary Education

The ability to utilise information technology at the tertiary level has many disadvantages, but on the other hand the drawbacks could leave many persons asking if society benefits? Education is a very suitable medium for social mobility as on transcends the various classes, strata and levels of education. This is one option in order to achieve some measure of financial freedom. This statement implies that anyone must embrace, straddle and overcome the establish levels in an education system.That is from the informal learning one experience from birth to the formal early childhood to the elementary level then secondary and eventually the tertiary level. In this twenty-first century of many technological advances, it is absolutely essential that consideration be given to the acquisition, implementation, utilisation, and function of information technology through the use of computers at the tertiary level of education. This development of computers provided tertiary educators and studen ts with a new dimension to challenge their capabilities, explore new horizons in learning and exploit the system that existed.Both constituents met their requirements and demands of tertiary level studies in the form of output in producing documents for presentation, preparing papers for submission, acquiring information for research, keeping of records and just knowledge for development with just a click. The advantages that present themselves to the student signals â€Å"Studying†¦. made in heaven†, easy access to reliable information, no note taking, implying full attention on the lecture or activity. Storage of information is not bulky.As students embraced the technological age, presenting their coursework papers in a legible manner, with little grammatical and spelling errors, lecturers who were not computer savvy were scrambling to acquire the necessary skills to match the students. Note taking and reading of textbooks, even the buying of textbooks are becoming rar e, all information is read off a screen. The acts of carrying around bulky textbooks are a thing of the past. Flash drives, CD’s, small hand held devices have taken over. Slowly traditions are being broken and the computer is becoming the students learning tool.They are buying memory sticks instead of books. Lecturers on the other hand utilise the technology to make presentations to class, keep records, communicate with students via e-mails, receive and give assignments and information through the computer. This made students feel that attendance at lectures was not a necessity as they could get the lecture on the Internet any time. One of the main advantages pertains to the effective use of limited resources available in tertiary institutions. Any lecturer would agree that the contact time with students is the least time involved in a course.In a learning environment undergoing rapid transformation, it is not surprising that teaching methods have also been changing. Lecturer s have to get with the times. As a part of the process of adapting to changing student demands, lecturers have had to consider new ways of delivering course content. A very practical example of this is the close relationship, technologically, that the lecturer and student develops. Course content and lecturers are sent directly to each student via e-mail or made available on a website.The disadvantages of this intensive mode of teaching signal the observer that there is a significant loss of social skills, study skills and data. No longer do students sit together in the same room, they could be miles apart but communicating through teleconferencing or videoconferencing. Data could be loss in the blink of an eye or the flick of a switch. A conscious effort must be made to back up and save information already acquired. The integrity of exams and one’s information could be questioned as all information can be so easily shared.It also found that the assumption that Academic Staff make, that students already have computer literacy skills, is often erroneous. We must take into consideration the student who suffers from technological anxiety, most times they are in the older age bracket and are not computer literate. Then there are the students who are economically challenged and find it difficult to access a computer. The prolonged use of computers pose serious health risks in repetitive eyestrain, lower back pain and computer vision syndrome.The user must take frequent breaks and purchase equipment to deal with correct posture. Despite the stated disadvantages, the use of computers in tertiary level studies is here to stay. Lecturers can track students, disburse information, keep records, recycle course content, store exams and revision exercises, communicate with students at any time of the day, not only during class contact time, with just a click. While students use this flexibility to maximise their study and personal time.

Hmong Involvement in the Vietnam War - 1921 Words

Research Prà ©cis and Annotated Bibliography Hmong Involvement in the Vietnam War Literature Review Outline I. Introduction A. History of Hmong existence in America (Barr, 2005; Mote, 2004; Castle, 1993) B. Hmong Values (Moore, 2003; Moua, 1995) C. Conflicts between Hmong culture and American culture (Moua, 1995) II. Body A. History of Hmong existence in America 1. Secret Vietnam War in Laos (Barr, 2005; Castle, 1993; Murphy 1997) 2. Communists persecute Hmong in Laos (Castle, 1993; Barr, 2005) B. Hmong Values 1. Cultural identity (Moore, 2003) 2. Marriage (Moua, 1995; Millett, 2002) C. Conflicts between the Hmong culture and American culture 1. Religion: Animisit and Christianity (Moua, 1995) 2. Authority:†¦show more content†¦Today, 18 different Hmong clan names are still passed down from generation to generation. Hmong clan names are equivalent to American last names. First names identify people and last names identify clans. The 18 clans provide life-time membership and ongoing material and spiritual support to their members from birth to death. Newborns are given the father’s clan nam e, which they cannot change. For that reason, Hmong women retain their clan name when they get married (Moua, 1995). The foundation of Hmong life is marriage and family (Millett, 2002). An ancient ritual requires the groom to pay â€Å"a bride-price,† a negotiated sum of money paid to the bride’s parents. Hmong newlyweds live with the husband’s parents until they have two or more children. However, Hmong culture expects the last-born married son, his wife, and children to permanently live with, support, and care for his parents and grandparents until their death. Unfortunately, time-honored Hmong traditions are challenged by American culture. For example, there is conflict between Hmong Christians and Hmong Animists. Animists sacrifice animals to worship spirits; they believe â€Å"that all living things have spirits† (Brittan, 1997). Hmong Christians worship God and condemn animal sacrifice. As a result, Christianity altered traditional Hmong rituals and ceremonies. For instance, Christianity eliminated the payment of a bride priceShow MoreRelatedEssay American Interve ntion1723 Words   |  7 PagesThe U.S. going to war in Vietnam is also a great example of how the U.S. tried to impose American values on the â€Å"less fortunate.† Through understanding America’s so called â€Å"duty† in Vietnam one can interpret the intervention of American idealism in the life of a Hmong family. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Lia lee, a little Hmong girl, has a severe case of epilepsy. 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