MCDONALD’S has announced a new team that will roll out three key changes across all restaurants and see it take on rivals like KFC.
The CEO of the fast-food chain Chris Kempczinski shared how its new Restaurant Experience Team is set to do this when it rolls out in May.
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Officials behind the giant burger chain have turned their attention to restaurant experience after noting it “is our ultimate competitive advantage,” press release said.
The changes to McDonald’s strategy are set to impact customers, employees and franchisees as it enforces an “end-to-end approach to the restaurant”.
The new Restaurant Experience Team will cover operations, supply chain, franchising, development, restaurant design, delivery and Speedee Labs, the chain’s innovation hub.
It has a three-point plan to boost operations and continues evolving.
As a subsection of the new team, McDonald’s announced three new global Category Management teams for beef, chicken, and beverages/desserts.
This will see dedicated leaders devoted to improving the chain’s offerings in these areas so it can “win” in each of the categories and take on “specialist rivals”.
The three new categories will help with one part of the three-point plan – “beating our competition with specialization”.
In a video posted to LinkedIn, the CEO explained: “The thinking behind this is, in so many ways of our categories, we’re competing against specialists.
“We’re competing against KFC for example, who is single-mindedly devoted to winning in chicken.
“This category team now allows us to actually have that same level of focus on do we have what we need, the winning strategies to win in chicken, to win in beverages, to continue to win in beef?”
The other two points of the plan are to improve ways of working and to use technology to improve the restaurant manager experience.
The former objective will see the company “get horizontal ways of working embedded into our structure,” Kempczinski said.
And a part of the new team will coordinate all of the business’s technologies that the general manager is a “touchpoint” for.
Kempczinski said: “I look at this as being able to take tech and think how do we actually use all of this to improve our unit economics.”
Speaking on the plan as a whole, the CEO told fans: “It felt to me we could be moving faster and being able to move faster meant again that we need to be working in a more horizontal way and moving faster on the implementation is going to be key for us to see the benefits associated with these big ideas.
“It’s going to make us even better.
“It’s going to allow us to have an even bigger impact for our customers, restaurant crew, and franchisees.”
Earlier this month, Kempczinski revealed his top three fast food predictions of 2025 as customers beg for a burger switch.
United fans who begged enough for the return of a beloved breakfast item were successful at twisting the chain’s arm last month with the menu item now available nationwide for the first time.
Meanwhile, the world’s largest food chain has set its sights on the US after surpassing McDonald’s to take the top spot.
