Differentiating Between Market Structures
Arthur Levitt once wrote, “Our markets have not achieved their greatest successes as a result of government fiat, but rather through the efforts of competing interests working to meet the demands of investors and to fulfill the promises posed by advancing technology."(Arthur, Levitt. (2015)) The competitive nature of an industry is what drives our markets throughout the world. An industry consists of all firms making similar or identical products. McDonald’s Corp., which falls underneath the food and beverage industry, has implemented multiple competitive strategies under the microeconomics concepts. The market structure McDonalds Corp. competes in, the level of competition, competitive strategies and recommendations related to the strategies identified will be covered in this paper.
The Market Structure
McDonald’s originated in America around 1955 and became a global fast food chain. Many organizations in the fast food industry sell the same product as McDonalds. After reviewing the market structures, I have chosen to classify McDonald’s as a monopolistic competition. Monopolistic competition is a market structure that numerous of firms sell products that are similar but not identical. (Colander, D. C. (2013)) This market structure was chosen due to Burger King, Wendy’s, Sonic and many more are selling the same products burgers and fries just like McDonalds but, with their own unique style and taste. The monopolistic market
McDonald’s Corporation are the most successful and popular fast food brand in the world, holding the largest fast food market share and being the leading fast food restaurant chain in terms of world sales (8%). They are the second greatest outlet operator with more than 34,000 outlets, serving worldwide to 69 million customers daily, across 119 countries. Their brand is the seventh most valuable and
McDonald's has successfully created a brand/name for itself as the leading fast food retailer in the world. It is somewhat of impossibility for one to not come across a McDonald's with over 30,000 local restaurants in over 100 countries (McDonald's, 2011). Those restaurants are owned either by a franchise owner or a corporation; a percentage of all the earnings from a franchise owner, including a percentage from their annual revenue go to McDonald's.
Due to globalization and this fast-growing business environment, firms struggle to earn above-average returns. They strive to establish a competitive advantage in order to earn higher returns. It is not enough for firms to establish a competitive advantage, they should also figure out ways to sustain it. There are several factors that can affect the competitiveness of a firm including customers, suppliers, existing rivals, new entrants, and substitutes. Firms should take into account these factors in order to sustain their competitive advantage. This paper analyzes Yoffie 's (2009) Cola War case, assesses concentrate producers, bottlers, and retailers in terms of Porter’s (2008) five forces of competition and provides recommendations to Coca-Cola.
The fast food industry in the US is witnessing the increasingly fierce competition among Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Jimmy’s egg and KFC. In addition, consumers increasingly favored foods clean and healthy. Foreseeing this need, numerous popular fast food restaurants sprung up promptly. The first Chipotle restaurant is opened in 1993 by Steve Ells in Colorado. On the contrary, McDonald’s is founded by McDonald’s family with a long history as well as one of the oldest brand in America. My paper will explain the similarities and differences in their three characteristics between Chipotle and McDonald’s, both of them are large enterprises in the fast food industry which have large market shares. Then, I also give opinions to differentiate
Market structure is the physical characteristics of the market within which companies react. This means that there are different kinds of market structure based on how companies work together within a particular industry. Location and product have the most to do with determining the market structure. There are four defined market types. The first market structure is called the perfectly competitive market. The second market is called a monopoly market structure. The third market is called monopolistic competition market structure. The final market is called oligopoly market structure. Each market structure is different and both benefits and disadvantages
First, Schlosser and Wilson describe the history of fast food. Everything started with a fifteen-year-old boy named Charlie Nagreen at a county fair squishing a meatball between two slices of bread, creating the hamburger. The authors then go on to talk about how McDonald’s was the first restaurant to introduce a quick system for customers to get their food. After seeing the success of the McDonald brothers, a businessman named Ray Kroc made a deal with them to travel the country, spreading the chain. Later, Ray Kroc would buy McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers. When other restaurants, such as Wendy’s and Burger King, saw the success of McDonald’s, they began to do the same thing, having a chain of identical restaurants across the United States. Not only did restaurants adopt this idea of complete sameness, but so did other companies such as
Firms within the fast food industry fall under the market structure of perfect competition. Market structure is a classification system for the key traits of a market. The characteristics of perfect competition include: large number of buyers and sellers, easy entry to and exit from the market, homogeneous products, and the firm is the price taker. Many fast food franchises fit all or most of these characteristics.
Even though McDonald’s and Burger King are really similar, they are also really different. They both try to have good advertising but McDonald’s is, most of the time, ahead. Their food seems to have the same condiments, but again, they are far away to be the same. They appear as the two most famous fast food restaurants around the world, but each one of them has their own
McDonald's franchise operates in oligopoly market since the fast food industry is one of the major industries with this type of markets. Some of the common features of oligopolistic markets are price rigidity and price war that have significant impacts on the firm's pricing strategies. The reason for the operation of this franchise in oligopolistic markets is that fast food industry is characterized by a small number of large producers or sellers. As a result, every large seller in the industry has a perceptible impact on other sellers as they influence the market.
REFERENCES•www.mcdonalds.com, accessed on 18 July, 2008•www.mcdonldsindia.net, accessed on 18 July, 2008•en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's, accessed on 19 July, 2008•http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/263943/mcdonalds_strategic_marketing_mix.html?cat=4, accessed on 19 July, 2008•www.kfc.com, accessed on 25 August, 2008
In his book entitled ‘The McDonaldization of Society’, George Ritzer nicely encompasses concepts from sociology, management, and economics to provide a profound understanding of our modern society. According to George Ritzer, McDonaldization is defined as the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world. Toys “R”Us, Wal-Mart, Gap, Jiffy Lube, and Home Depot are all examples of companies that want to become the McDonald’s of their industry. The success of McDonald’s is also evident worldwide as over half of the company’s revenue comes from overseas operations serving 50 million customers a day. Indeed, this
There are many key structures to marketing. These marketing structures are used by many major corporations and at times are taken advantage. I will be discussing four of these market structures, which are perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Understanding these marketing structures and making it work for a company to grow also produce for their customers.
The second force that acts on the industry is the threat of new entrants. Fortunately for McDonald’s and it’s over 30,000 restaurants world-wide, the corporation has set itself in a position of dominance. Using a growth strategy, “McDonald’s is continuously expanding its reach which makes it increasingly difficult for new fast food restaurants to enter the industry, through franchising, McDonald’s is able to reach nearly every corner of the globe” (Shell, Ellen Ruppel).
The company researched for the purpose of this paper is McDonald 's. This company 's history dates back since 1940 when Mac and Dick McDonald initially opened McDonald 's BBQ restaurant located in San Bernardino, CA. In 1948 they shut down the restaurant, just to reopen it as a self-service drive-in restaurant. According to About McDonald’s (2012), their menu included only 9 items, such as: milk, coffee, soft drinks, cheeseburger, hamburger, potato chips, and a slice of pie. Potato chips were then replaced by French fries. The history of this company is significantly market by Ray Kroc, who in 1954 at a visit to McDonald 's in San Bernardino decides to have a franchise of McDonald 's. A year later, in 1955, he opens his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. The franchising plan allowed growth and by 1965 there were more than 700 restaurants across United States. McDonald 's
Since McDonald’s is the most well know fast food chain in the world with a market cap of 69.35 billion, brand recognition is their biggest strength. The secret of McDonald’s success is its willingness to innovate and maintain consistency in the operation of its many outlets. In recent years McDonald’s has introduced Premium Salads, Snack Wraps, fresh Apple Dippers in the United States, and Corn Cups in China. Also, McDonald 's products are priced so low that economic conditions are almost insignificant.