McDonald's to Simplify Structure, Focus on Customers

The New York Times ^ | MAY 4, 2015, 8:55 A.M. E.D.T. | A.P.

[Rodamala]

NEW YORK — McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook says he's stripping away layers of bureaucracy so the company can move faster to keep up with changing tastes.

During a 23-minute video message posted online Monday, Easterbrook said the company's structure is too "cumbersome" and that it can no longer afford its "legacy structure."

[Grams A]

I got food poisoning from their Quarter Pounders last year...”

And I got food poisoning from their grilled chicken sandwich and haven’t nor will I ever spend another dime there again.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Go back to the menu that people used to really ENJOY in the 70’s. And go back to making it a fun place for kids.

In other words, tell the government to lump it.

[RIghtwardHo]

Haven’t been there in probably 15 years. can’t imagine the food has improved.

[9YearLurker]

Your tip #2 seems contrary to my primary advice to them: make decent burgers. Those two-dimensional, shoe-leather pucks they serve up now are disgusting.

[babygene]

I think last year they changed the beef they were using in their hamburgers. I used to like it, but since last year I can’t eat it.

As a side note - a week or so ago I ordered a sausage mcmuffen because I missed breakfast and ask for some water to take a pill. They charged 20 cents for the water...

[grania]

The problem with their items off the dollar menu is that they aren't cheap. Besides that, they don't offer quality whole grain breads.

I can go to some competitors and for $2 more than those expensive McDonald's choices get a sandwich or combo that's two nutritional meals. Or for $3 get an Arby's Classic Roast Beef on Rye.

[Rodamala]

I used to really enjoy sausage McMuffins... but the last two or three times that I got them I noted feeling “odd” afterwards. Not “sick to my stomach”, but like it messed up something with my nervous system, like with dulled senses. A foggy feeling.

I suppose it is MSG, or as they call it now (because they are so smart and the consumer is so uninformed), “Yeast Extract”.

I think I am done buying them.

[GailA]

UNTIL THEY ACCEPT my 2nd Amendment Rights, they will NOT SEE a dime of my business.

[dead]

Put meat in your hamburgers!

[SelmaLee]

Well, they certainly ‘simplified’ the McDonalds downtown in my little town this week-end.

Friday, I noticed a big crane in their lot, apparently removing the big sign out front.

Drove by yesterday, and the place was totally devoid of ANY evidence that it had ever been a McDonalds!

[Kenton]

They've done pretty well for the last 50 or so years by building restaurants off practically every freeway exit in the country, and providing predictable food that kids will eat and clean bathrooms at every freeway exit so Mom doesn't have to go in some dirty gas station bathroom.

That's about it, I think. I don't think anybody goes there for the food.

[bill1952]

Can’t think of any way that your post makes any send on any level!
Almost nobody cares about whole grain breads at McDonald’s.
Nor do they want to pay more for it.

[Ouderkirk]

Their food has really gotten bad of late. I’m not going there for healthy...we all know it’s $h!t but that’s why we liked it. It tasted good. Now, it’s still $h!t, but it doesn’t even taste good.

[molson209]

Focus on Meat Eaters ,not Vegan pansies

[grania]

The problem is that as more people care about whole grain breads and other nutritional issues like no high fructose corn syrup, they're no longer going to be McDonald's customers. If Arby's or Roy Rodgers can offer a healthy bread option at no extra cost, why can't McDonalds? Panera, Chipolte, DiBella's, even Eat'n Park are examples of places where for $2 more than an expensive McDonald's sandwich I can get two healthy lunches, and save money.

McDonald's started out by offering nutritional enough foods at a good price. They lost their way.

[RightOnTheBorder]

There is a McDonalds I frequent which has a 30 second guarantee between 11am and 2pm. I haven’t timed it to the second but they are fast and I’ll be darned if they don’t get my order right each time I go. I wonder what this location is doing that the others can’t or won’t.

[tumblindice]

McBurgerWorld: Beavis sniffing his finger.

[Graybeard58]

I don’t care what they do to “reorganize,” I got food poisoning from their Quarter Pounders last year and will NEVER eat their crappy food again.

Same thing happened to me, my wife and toddler son at Wendy's in 1978, a night in the E.R. trying to get rehydrated and I said the same thing, "never again".

37 years later and I still haven't set foot in a Wendy's again.

Poison me once, shame on you, poison me twice, shame on me.

[discostu]

The problem is Americans are eating better food. Even in fastfood the quality has generally gone up. And McD is stuck being the “fast and crappy” place. And sure, the people still going to McD are OK with that, but that number is shrinking. All the new guard are making better food, and most of the old guard has reinvented themselves (look at Wendys, a vastly different place than they were just 10 years ago and sales and profits are climbing). McD keeps trying to reinvent themselves but they can’t make it stick, the fast and crappy crowd doesn’t like any of the new changes, and the crowd that actually wants good food doesn’t believe them.

[discostu]

Probably a corporate store. they follow all the rules and tend to do all the things right... except make profit. Corporate doesn’t care if their stores make profit, they just want them to show how awesome the rules are.