McDonald’s latest organizational change goes directly after more specialized fast-food competitors, particularly those in the chicken and beverage categories.
The fast-food giant on Tuesday announced the creation of a new Restaurant Experience Team, an evolution from the company’s customer experience team it created three years ago. The team includes people from operations, supply chain, restaurant design, franchising, delivery and technology.
But it also creates three new global teams focusing on three primary menu categories: beef, chicken and beverages and desserts.
The idea behind those teams is for the company to be more competitive with the growing number of “specialist” concepts with which McDonald’s competes. “We’re competing against somebody like a KFC, which is single-mindedly devoted to winning in chicken,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a video announcing the change. “So this category team now allows us to have that same level of focus.”
McDonald’s has long been known for its burgers, of course. But the chain is going after two key markets right now, chicken and beverages. The company is working on several chicken items, including chicken tenders and Snack Wraps. And it plans to bring back the Chicken Big Mac as a limited-time offer.
It has also pushed into beverages with its CosMc’s concept, though those menu items could potentially be folded into McDonald’s restaurants.
Both of those markets are increasingly competitive. Numerous chicken-focused brands—including what is arguably McDonald’s top competitor, Chick-fil-A—are growing rapidly and taking share in the restaurant market. Beverages, meanwhile, are also growing, thanks to the incursion of drive-thru-focused chains like Dutch Bros and 7 Brew.
That said, it’s not just specialists pushing into these areas. Taco Bell, the country’s fourth-largest chain, itself last week said it plans to push more into chicken and beverages—notably with its Live Mas Café in-restaurant beverage concept.
But Kempczinski also said that the team can help coordinate various ideas, initiatives and technologies to support restaurant general managers. “I look at this as being able to take technology now and think about how we actually use all of this to improve our unit economics,” he said.
He also said that the team is about speeding McDonald’s decision-making. Technology and innovation are being added to the chain’s restaurants every day, and the company believes the new team will be able to take this innovation to the restaurants more quickly.
“It just felt to me, we could be moving faster,” Kempczinski said. “And being able to move faster meant that we needed to be working in a more horizontal way and moving faster on the implementation.”
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