How did McDonald's go from opening their first restaurant in 1940 in San Bernadino, California, to having 41,822 restaurants worldwide in 2023? 🍔
Short answer: The systems in place are well-proven, well-tested, well-iterated and consistent.
Long answer:
If you've not seen the film 'The Founder', you should. It's a film about the founders of McDonald's and how they started to franchise the restaurant out.
The founders were (Rightly) worried about maintaining consistency across multiple restaurants, and employed Ray Kroc who created the systems that each restaurant would adhere to.
Put them in place, trained people on the same systems, machinery, process, and quality stayed high throughout.
Drag and drop this to over 41,000, some perhaps changing the menu to fit different cultures, and you've got McDonald's as you see it today, still using a solid system and process.
What does that teach us?
If you want to scale, you need a system. Write it down, optimise it, try it and iterate, and go again.
Business Development Executive
1moFantastic update! 😊