net food-delivery service Food.com. These acquisitions will allow McDonald’s to move into growing non-hamburger markets while increasing product selection. Weaknesses Even though McDonald’s has been extremely successful, there are still some weaknesses that exist within the company. Those weaknesses include past product and promotion concepts, performance of international divisions, and it’s U.S. expansion strategy. For McDonald’s, the creation and implementation of new products costs millions of dollars. These millions of dollars have been spent on products such as the Arch Deluxe and McPizza, which no longer exist. Along with failed products is the constant change of promotions and slogans. Recently McDonald’s has launched its Made For You food preparation system designed to allow franchise operators to serve up fresher food with less waste. The problem has been that customers are complaining about longer waits in line. This definitely does not coincide with the fast-food image. The new cooking system is being introduce through McDonald’s $500 million “We love to see you smile” ad campaign. Another weakness for McDonald’s has been with expansion in the United States. In the early 90’s they were expanding into airports, malls, and hospitals. This was in an effort to move from cities and suburbs that were already saturated. These new ventures proved to be unsuccessful and many have closed due to poor profitability. Along with expansion in the U.S., some international markets have not been as successful as projected. Weaker foreign currency has impacted international divisions profitability. For example, European operating income fell to $313.5 million from $324.8 one year ago. This is a drastic decrease when compared to the drop in sales, which was down slightly to $2.45 billion, from $2.46 million. Luckily for McDonald’s the weaker interna...
