The first McDonald's restaurant opened on 15th April 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois, U.S.A. and after 50 years down the line, the company is the world's largest food service system with more than 30,000 restaurants in 100 countries, serving more than 46 million customers every day. McDonald's opened its doors in India in October 1996. Nowadays the company has restaurants all over India: Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Noida, Faridabad, Doraha, Manesar and Gurgaon. McDonald's in India is a 50-50 joint venture partnership between McDonald's Corporation and two Indian businessmen Amit Jatia and Vikram Bakshi, who share McDonald's complete commitment to Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value (QSC&V). Having signed their joint-venture agreements with McDonald's in April 1995, they trained extensively, along with their Indian management team, in McDonald's restaurants in Indonesia and the U.S.A. before opening the first McDonald's restaurant in India.
Tags: Beef in McDonald's, Cultural misunderstanding with McDonald's beef burger, McDonald's change beef to lamb burgers, McDonald's hamburgers in a Hindu country
[...] For this reason, McDonald's operations in India, like other parts of the world, will continue to face opposition from religious fundamentalists, environmentalists protectionists, animal rights activists, and anti globalization protestors. Therefore to improve its growth, McDonald's needs to develop new products on a regular basis. Given India's fragmented regional cultures, where no single food preference predominates, McDonald's is likely to face constant pressure to increase its product range. But developing new products adds complexity and cost and raises the risk of error. [...]
[...] India's sensitivity to cultural imperialism, the so called Western cultural domination over Indian values, traditions, religious beliefs, customs, and food habits, made the entry of foreign multinational corporations, particularly in the food industry, difficult. And in India, there is a vocal group of environmental and animals' activists who oppose the entry of fast food chains like McDonald's. According to this group's campaign, junk food chains like McDonald's destroy ecological balance and cause severe behavior disorders because of their fatty and unhealthy foods, which have excessive levels of monosodium glutamate. [...]
[...] The answer to this question lies in Mac Donald's carefully planned entry and expansion strategy in accordance with India's changing political, economic, and cultural landscape in the 1990s McDonald's solutions McDonald's has given the adage of “think global, act local” a concrete shape in India. At the beginning, McDonald's was faced with two challenges of the Indian market: how to avoid hurting religious sensibilities of Indian consumers? how to avoid political confrontation with Indian government and political activists? Indeed due to dietary restrictions imposed by religion, McDonald's had to be creative in its product offerings. [...]
[...] The biggest challenge for McDonald's is to adapt a beef-centric product line to a country in which cows are sacred. Indeed about 80% of population is Hindu and are not allowed to eat beef. Moreover a significant percentage of population is Muslims who don't eat pork, and about 40% of population is completely vegetarian. With more than five thousand ethnic communities represented, India has a very diverse population. Each region and subregion in India has distinct food tradition and preferences. [...]
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