McDonald's has never been content to sit back and wait for consumer tastes to change around it$.$

Rather, the company continues to do what it can to shape the face of fast food and influence the

marketplace with new offerings and other changes. In recent years, however, the drive by McDonald's

to reinvent itself has risen to another level in the face of stiff competition from healthier alternatives

$($Subway$)$ and a general feeling by the public that major fast$-$food companies are not much different

from one another in terms of their prices, quality, service levels, and product offerings.

When fast food seemed synonymous with "greasy," "overcooked," and "fried," McDonald's

changed things up with their healthy options menu, including wraps, grilled options instead of the

production line fried foods, fresh fruit, and yogurt$-$based smoothies. These menu changes were doubly

effective: They allowed McDonald's to compete directly with other stores that promoted healthy

alternatives, like Subway, and they took some of the rhetorical wind out ofthe sails of their harshest

critics, including the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who, in $2011,$ banned the inclusion of a toy

in McDonald's Happy Meals$,$ claiming that the "pester power" of children could induce parents

to buy these unhealthy lunch choices. McDonald's response was twofold: Offer healthy options like

milk and apple slices in Happy Meals$,$ and instead of eliminating the toys, McDonald's charged $10$

cents for the addition ofa toy, with the proceeds benefiting the Ronald McDonald House.

McDonald's continues to set the pace in the fast$$food industry. When competitors offer their own

healthy menus, they are often seen as simply copying and therefore acknowledging the prescience of

McDonald's in staying ahead of the consumertrend curve. The fast$-$food industry has been the butt

ofjokes and held up to general disapproval for a number of years due to charges that it offers

increasingly poor choices to patrons who don't know any better. Unlike some competitors who seem

content to keep their menus unchanged and their products unhealthy, McDonald's has been doing

what is necessary to change who they are, reinvent themselves, and keep their fingers firmly on the

pulse of their international customer base.

Recently, McDonald's has been focusing on investing in technology to drive sales growth, especially

in the area of digital sales. The company has been installing digital self$-$order kiosks in their restaurants

and expanding food delivery. McDonald's has also been ramping up its tech$$focused investments.

In $2019$ alone, the company acquired Apprente, a Silicon Valley company using artificial intelligence

to automate drive$-$thru orders, and Dynamic Yield, a company that specializes in decision logic

technology. CEO Chris Kempczinski emphasizes the importance of technology shaping the company's

strategy in $2020$ and beyond: "Digital is transforming global retail, and it will transform McDonald's