Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of McDonalds

McDonald’s is an American fast food restaurant chain with its global headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois. It has over 36,000 restaurants found in 120 countries all over the world, serving 68 million customers each day. It was founded as a barbeque restaurant in 1940 by Richard and Maurice McDonald. In the year 1955, a businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent and bought the company from the McDonald brothers. McDonald’s Corporation, incorporated in the year 1964, operates and franchises McDonald’s restaurants. 

A McDonalds restaurant is operated by a franchisee, an affiliate, or the McDonalds corporation itself. McDonalds primary products include burgers, french-fries, soft drinks, milkshakes, wrap and desserts.… Read the rest

Case Study: Marketing Strategy of Walt Disney Company

What started out to be nothing more than a dream of Walter Elias Disney, with the release of Alice in Wonderland, a series of short film comedies, the beginning of a world renowned global corporation Walt Disney had evolved. Walter and his brother Roy were equal partners in what was originally the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923 and with the suggestion of Roy, it soon was renamed The Walt Disney Studio. After four years of success and profit, Walter and Roy experienced a business set back when they found their film distributor M.J. Winkler had stolen their cartoon characters and animators in attempt to undercut them.… Read the rest

Analyzing Toyota’s Recipe for Success – The Toyota Way

The fundamental reason for Toyota’s success in the global marketplace lies in the so called “Toyota way”. The Toyota Way is not only about technology and efficiency, it is about doing the right thing for the company, its employees, the customer and the society as a whole.

In other words, the incredible success of the Toyota way is a direct result of operational excellence. Toyota has turned operational excellence into a strategic weapon. This operational excellence is only in part based on tools and quality improvement methods made famous by Toyota in the manufacturing world, such as JIT, Kaizen, and one-piece-flow.… Read the rest

Case Study: Zara’s Operational Model

Founded in 1975, ZARA, a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer was originally the brainchild of the Inditex Group owned by Amancio Ortega. Headquartered in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, Inditex is the world’s largest fashion retailer with ZARA as its international flagship chain store. Beginning with the single store in Spain to the recent launch into Australia, ZARA currently has over 1,700 stores in 78 countries providing exclusive fashion worldwide. ZARA, alone accounted for 64.6% of the Inditex group turnover in 2010. Over time, it has become one of the notable leaders amongst the fashion brands. ZARA was described by Louis Vuitton fashion director, Daniel Piette as “possibly the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world” and CNN described the brand as a “Spanish’s success story”

Zara’s Operational Model

Shifting from “mass standardization” to “customization” on a global scale is the most interesting aspect of the Zara’s business model.… Read the rest

PESTEL Analysis of Skoda Company

The two cyclists, who were known as Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement, are considered as the founders of Skoda Company. The two cyclists were used to design and produce their own bicycles and eventually it was established as Skoda. In 1925, Skoda was established in Czechoslovakia and gradually, it was expanded towards Eastern Europe by producing cars, farm ploughs, and aero planes other than bicycles. Skoda has to cope with hard times in company history such as war, economic problems and also the changes in the political environment. While the Skoda is grown up internationally, there was a requirement of a strong foreign partner.… Read the rest

Case Study: Organizational Structure and Culture of Virgin Group

The Virgin Group is one of the most successful business empires today. This organization has established itself in diverse industries including mobile telephony, retail, music, financial services, travel, and many more. Virgin has ruled the British market and has expanded worldwide into other regions like North America, Asia, Africa and Australia. Starting out as a simple mail-order record retailer in 1970, Virgin has grown into one of the most successful business empires in the world. The Virgin Group has established more than 300 companies, employing around 50000 people in 30 countries. Its global revenues in 2009 exceeded US$18 billion. The majority of the Virgin Group’s success has been credited to the founder and CEO of Virgin, Richard Branson.… Read the rest