Does McDonald’s Success Outside the Us Provide Support for Levitt’s View About the Global Marketplace?

1. Does McDonald’s success outside the US provide support for Levitt’s view about the global marketplace?

No, because in Theodore Levitt’s view in global marketplace, he defined a global product as a product that is equally attractive to different parts of the world, and as mentioned in the case, McDonald’s products in different countries are not the same, although this is inevitable as countries have their own culture to follow, still as stated by Levitt, a company can be only considered in a global marketplace if same products and same services are used, and McDonalds’ do not really practice it as not only does their products vary from one place to another, the services they offer are different as well it depends on the need of the country, example of this would be the Hindu regions that prohibits eating of beef so McDonalds provided lamb based another example would be the green kitchen that accommodates vegetarians.

1. Do you think government officials in developing countries such as Russia, China, and India welcome McDonalds? Do consumers in these countries welcome McDonalds? Why or why not?

If it would be examined individually, for Russia, During the time that McDonalds were preparing for the sale of the Bolshoic Mac, political disputes between the President of Russia and the parliament were already present in the country (Russian Constitutional Crisis 1993), and this may have indirectly affect the negotiation process of McDonalds, a reason why it took 14 years. Next for China, although it has the largest McDonald’s restaurant, as well as it has established a proper 20-year lease with Central Beijing , still it has encountered a conflict between the city government, as they were instructed to vacate the site, and even though it did not happen. And lastly for India, although McDonalds, adjusted their products from beef to lamb-based for the Hindu and opening a green restaurants for vegetarians, still some they encountered some Hindu nationalist groups protest about the power shortages and what’s worse was that they were accused of the city government for using the electricity three times more.

With that, it could be only deduced that, as whole Russian, Chinese and Indian government officials were not really accommodating to McDonalds, although this was not that evident in Russia as what happened during their time was a political crisis that was unpredictable, for India it was clearly stated as, if they were accommodating in the first place such actions such as adjustments to raw materials, would be enough to accept the products. For the case of China, it was more prevalent as it was obvious that they did not want McDonalds because they ask them, as mentioned, to vacate a site that was not approved by the higher-ups.

1. Assess McDonald’s prospects for success beyond the burger-and-fries model. Do customers care who owns a company such as Donato’s Pizza?

Although none of the popular burger chains like Wendy’s and Burger King were the first to introduced the concept of burger between two sliced of bread, one can still be sure of that McDonalds was the one who introduced burgers around the world as it dominates a number of countries resulting to a 30, 200 units worldwide as of 2000. Moreover, these burgers have different appearance and taste in different countries because of its culture, a reason why McDonalds is popular and continues to be known not only to the countries it established its restaurants but around the world. And if they continue their promotion, and innovation, they could dominate other countries as well and be the top fast growing food chain.