Answer the two questions regarding the Case study below:

McDonalds is a leading international fast food restaurant chain with around 45,000 plus restaurants spread across the globe. In Pakistan, it launched its operations in 90s with two stores. Now, it has 15 plus restaurants with a daily inflow of 200,000 customers plus. It planned to add 15 more outlets by the end of 2020. As per the Informal Eating Out (IEO) survey involving the survey of branded food chains in Pakistan, conducted by A. F. Ferguson, McDonalds was found to be the leader in fast food chains. Many factors can be attributed to the success of McDonalds Pakistani operations.

First, McDonalds has focused on products and changed its menu to suit the tastes of Pakistani consumers. It launched Pakistan-specific (all Halal) items including Chapli-Kabab burger, Beef Bahari-kabab burger and Chicken-Malai burger.

On the pricing front, McDonalds has adopted customized pricing for each of the cities depending upon the tax structure, demand, and purchasing power of the population. However, to attract mass-market customers, it launched a new menu called the Happy Price Menu in which select items were priced at Rs: 100/- across all the outlets in the country.

As McDonalds is into the food business, establishing an efficient supply chain infrastructure is of great importance. McDonalds has, therefore, focused on setting up an efficient and effective supply chain. Its supply chain is three tiered, consisting of farms, processing plants, and distribution centres. The company has selected farmers who can meet its quality and supply standards and directly sources the produce from them. They are supported by McDonalds in terms of seed technology and the latest irrigation methods to enable them to obtain higher yields and better produce. The next level of supply chain activities involves the processing of farm produce. For this, the company has tied up with various local suppliers like K & Ns Foods Pvt. Ltd, and McDonalds Pakistan Pvt. Ltd. that processes chicken and vegetarian food products at its plant situated at Lahore. Haleeb Diary supplies cheese, butter, ghee, and milk products supplies long life UHT Milk and Milk Products for Frozen Desserts from its fully automated plant situated at Sahiwal. The next level of supply chain activity is the distribution of processed food to the outlets. For this, the company has tied up with Muller & Philips distribution multinational company of Pakistan, which is into food products distribution. Muller & Philips provides logistics support to McDonalds by providing cold storage facilities and transporting the processed foods to the outlets using temperature-controlled transport vehicles.

To maintain the service standards, the company has made it mandatory for personnel to undergo periodic training programmes. The core principles of McDonaldsquality, service, cleanliness, and valueguide its training programmes. The companys highly structured training programmes are conducted at four levels: crew development programme, restaurant management programme, mid-management programme, and executive development programme. Entry-level workers are trained under the basic crew development programme. The training is conducted at each restaurant. Crew members are given on-the-job and off-the-job training. The next level of training is the management development programme. This training programme is devised for the employees in the restaurant management team. The programme ranges from the basic level to the advanced level.

McDonalds has also focused on creating a right ambience in its outlets. The company has positioned its outlets as a restaurant that caters to the typical Pakistani family and the physical environment reflects that image with the atmosphere being informal and bright. The outlets a spacious for kids to play around and families have the facility to conduct events like birthday parties. In addition, the outlets have been made nonsmoking zones to reflect the sensibilities of Pakistani families. McDonalds also lays special emphasis on kids. The outlets have low counters for easy accessibility to kids. Besides, vibrant colors and theme-based paintings pleasing to kids have been used.

McDonalds has developed localized ads in line with the advertising strategy of the parent company. Localized ads with the punch line Im lovin it were created. Humorous ads with the theme What Your Bahana is were developed to put the message across to the consumers. In addition, McDonalds also carries out various sales promotion activities to keep up the interest in the brand like offering toys and other accessories, and conducting contests.

QUESTIONS

Q1: The services marketing mix consists of three additional elements like people, process, and physical evidence apart from the traditional marketing mix elements such as product, price, promotion, and place. How McDonald was able to utilize these additional three elements to market its services? (Elaborate your answer in detail)

Q2: The proliferation of western fast-food chains such as McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Dominos in the Pakistani market has attained substantial market share. What are the reasons that have contributed to the increased popularity of western fast-food chains in Pakistan? (Elaborate your answer in detail)