What does it mean that Macdonald is serving McTech? And what can nonprofits learn from this iconic company that feeds 1% of the world’s population? There is much to learn in my view. And not the least of which of course is MacDonald’s ability to connect with people worldwide and deliver the same tasty big Mac!
Let’s see, Macdonald is going back to its roots, it’s not about the tech – that part is just presentation, it’s about customer intimacy, not to be confused with engagement, its intimacy. And what has reminded Macdonald’s management about intimacy, Amazon, it is the modern day wizard at it. Amazon knows their customers and the products/services intimately and matches the two to fit like a hand in a glove. They take the thinking and worry out of it and what you have left is called “delight”, which invariably translates to cha-ching! The feeling builds trust and good brand loyalty, when supported by good delivery – customer journey.
At the height of its dominance, Macdonald understood what those tired parents, coming back from the school game with restless kids needed. It was something, simple, predictable, quick and able to satisfy everyone’s taste buds and to keep everyone happy. It was the “happy meal” together with toys, playgrounds, the homely feeling of eating together in the car. For a while though, Macdonald started focusing on costs, we know the “dollar menu” and on operational excellence, that is cost/quality, also known as “value for money”. That was good and it allowed them to expand worldwide but it started leaving “delight” behind, Five Guys, Chic-fil A and others moved in to take some of their customers.
I hear a lot of talk about nonprofit donors wanting “value for money”. Is that really true? Sometimes I have my doubts and wonder if they just want to be delighted. One of the challenges in nonprofit work is the distance between those paying for the services, the donors and those receiving the services, the clients (check my recent blog post on this). Often donors never get to know who received the services. For this reason, value for money is mostly just an abstract idea to donors, just a hedging mechanism. This is one reason why western donors ignore some of the worst crises around the world, until a western face decries it. Oh no, that is not a judgment on the donors, its just a reflection of the distance between donors and beneficiaries and the nonprofit challenge. Many nonprofits struggle and I know work their hearts out to bridge this distance everyday. It will be nice to see more nonprofits move away from formulating strategies entirely based on achieving value for money and more based on intimacy and doing so on the two ends of their value chain, the donors and the clients (beneficiaries). Digitization and the digital revolution is an opportunity for nonprofits to reframe their value proposition with donors and clients.
Below is a link to the article that discusses Macdonald serving “McTech”. It got me going. Please read and share your views. What is your opinion of nonprofit corporate strategy designs today? How can they leverage digitization and the digital revolution to explore other strategy dimensions?
McDonald’s Starts Serving McTech to Survive in the Modern Age
McDonald’s Starts Serving McTech to Survive in the Modern Age
— Read on longreads.com/2019/10/02/mcdonalds-starts-serving-mctech-to-survive-in-the-modern-age/
This past spring I learned something very insightful by simply staying alert to my surrounds on my commute to work. It may sound like a cliche but nature has a lot to teach us, if we take a minute to notice. But truly, what can have more insight and lessons on change than nature? Mother nature has literally been dealing with change for millennia. Change is not new to it and we can expect it to have lessons to share on the subject, it thrives on it, just go to your local park and check.
Nonprofit Auditor 