McDonalds and Burger King have to get their demand and supply in the same ratio, e.g. not supplying too many burgers for the amount demanded, otherwise there will be a loss, this is why special offers are sometimes given because too many burgers have been made for the demand. They have to assess the amounts of a product is needed otherwise their will be a loss, which will not help sales figures and will, leave less money for promotion of a product and other items related to the selling of the product, this would also make the company less competitive.
Evidence Primary:
(See appendices FIGURE 3) I researched people’s opinions in my year on whether they preferred McDonalds or Burger King and the results became quite useful as they showed which was more popular. In my year alone I saw that more people likes McDonalds rather than Burger King. 75 % prefer McDonalds, 16.7% prefer Burger King and 8.3% prefer an other restaurant.
Evidence Secondary:
(See appendices FIGURE 1) In a poll McDonalds Vs Burger King, asking "which you prefer?" there was 152 votes in total, and 76 for McDonalds and 76 for Burger king, so the public evenly like both the fast food outlets
(See appendices FIGURE 2) McDonalds last year alone had 14,243 million sales the cost of these sales being 5,821.5 million pounds, these profit figures are the best that McDonalds has had, and there as been a profit increase ever year since 1996. These results show as well that Burger King has increases in sales every year since 1996; therefore it is also competitive however its sales are much lower than that of McDonalds.
(See appendices FIGURE 3) The graph gives a much easier way to display this information and easily shows that McDonalds has much higher amount of sales for the year.
Analyse:
However people who like both is not a category so these people are unable to comment on their favourite place to eat.
From sales figures you cannot really say which is more competitive because making the most profit is only one aspect to consider when reviewing how competitive a business is, it has more to do with the public relations that, that company has with its customers.
E.g. the 4 P’s; price, promotion, place and product. So for McDonalds to make more sales than burger king, being competitive they have to offer the best, they do this in many ways.
(For more detail see appendices FIGURE 5)
In general you would think the company with the best food, prices and service would be the most competitive as it is beating the other companies standards. In some cases employees have been in terrible conditions such as this ex employee of burger king, who now suffers badly from acne and his now a disgruntled ex-employee. As well as the standards for the customer the standards for fast food employees also has to show the competitiveness of both companies, so in this case employees were not treated fairly saying that burger king has worse standards than McDonalds however this is only a case study which occurred in one restaurant and not the entire chain of Burger Kings.
Burger king and McDonalds stick to a set of rules when dealing with customers so that they are helpful to the customer and make them want to come back to the restaurant. These rules are always used by the employee, there is in excess of 60 rules, so here a just a few:
- Plain means nothing on it
- The customer is always right.
- Don't be rude or impatient or short.
- Come to work clean and hygienic.
- Patience is a virtue.
- Answer all questions
- Do everything with a smile.
(See appendices FIGURE 3) This shows that what McDonalds is doing with customer relation is good and each year it attracts more and more customers, this means that McDonalds improves its stock, stores and staff even when they have made a profit, this means they are competitive.
Evaluation:
From my findings I have discovered that although Burger King was initiated 20 years before McDonalds, that McDonalds is more popular and has many more customers but does this make it more competitive? Yes as it wouldn’t be better than Burger King unless it had the best service, is up-to-date with the customers needs and gave the best quality food. Perhaps if McDonalds did not have competition it would not excel in its business and compete with competitors, this makes McDonalds the most competitive and also gives McDonalds what it needs to please customers and make a profit.
Appendices
FIGURE 1
http://cgi.dreamscape.com/- throb/mcdonalds-burgerking/poll.cgi
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 5
Price: to make a profit the companies has to keep the product at a certain price however to make the customers happy and to have a lower price than the competition the companies have to get very close to the market clearing price and if they do this they must give enough of a cost to pay for bills.
Promotion: to promote products companies often do buy one get one free or 2 for a pound. This technique often gets customers however customers start to buy two of a product for more money because there is a deal on, when they only want one of the product, this cons the customer into buying two of a product. As well as this they have advertisements with pictures of food that looks very filling, tasty, and mouth-watering, this attracts customers to the store.
Place: the location of the store is very important, in more cases than not the stores are situated in the middle of the town or in popular locations, this is the case in stoke on Trent and in others places that I have seen. Both stores are situated close to each other so; one restaurant is not used more than the other because of convenience.
Product: both McDonalds and burger king regularly change their products from one meal to an other. Even when their product is changed they are always of the same quality as the last and more often than not are high sellers. Meals are always to best standards and if not money will be refunded and food replaced.
