What are Mc Donald's and Burger King really doing?

Are Fast Food companies providing speedly made food for very reasonnable price? Appearently this is the core business of any fast food companie. But, Tom Peters one of the most famous management gurus would not totally be agreeing with that. Many of us will remind what he told about Harley Davidson, which was not selling motos but a lifestyle, following the words of a Harley Davidson executive : "There is no one here, who is stupid enough to think that we are selling motos". It would be more or less the same for Mac Donald's and Burger King. But the main problem of all that is to demostrate what has been exponed, I mean, that the appearent core business of a company can be something quite different than the real corre business of the same company.

Let us take the example of Mc Donald's and its competitors.

First question : If Fast Food is the core Business of McDonald's, why should McDonald's be so difficult to imitate?

If McDonalds was only a cold and unpersonal Fast Food provider and did not have something else to offer than "McDonald's Famous Hamburgers" as Carl Karcher in 1944 .... even if the customers awarded the Speed Service System very soon, it would have been quite easy to imitate.

When competitors wanted to copy McDonald's first self service fast food restaurant in Anaheim, being the profit margin very high and the start-up costs very low, only those restaurant chain offering a different product have survived :

Taco Bell (Mexican Food) - Founder is William Rosenberg
Insta-Burger (Hamburgers) - Founders : King Keith G. Cramer and Matthew Burns
Wendv's OId-Fashioned Hamburgers (Hamburgers) - Founder Dave Thomas
Domino's (Pizzas) Founder is Thomas S. Monaghan
Kentucky Fried Chicken (Fried Chicken) - Founder : Harland Sanders

But many of those imitation have disappeared or never had a prayer: Sandy's, Carro l's, Henry's, Winky's, and Mr. Fifteen's, Satellite Hamburger System and Kelly's Jet System, Burger Chefs, Burger Queens, Burgerville USAs, Yumy Burgers, Twitty Burgers, Whataburgers, Dundee Burgers, Biff-Burgers. O.K. Big Burgers, and Burger Boy Food-O-Ramas.

Among the five copies, two of them are hamburgers makers. to be more explcite, its is impossible to identify the main critical factor of success. Product ? System? Prices? Image? Context?. Wat make the difference between the successful survivals and the other competitors, which were also fast food makers, most of them hamburger makers.

© Cladas 2008