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Summary
Creating a new product that is expected to fascinate customers in the food industry is both exciting and challenging. Numerous opportunities for combining existing flavors and creating new ones, as well as exploring different cuisines, are barely possible to embrace, yet the competition and restrictions that product development in the food industry entails create substantial obstacles. In their article, Dugmore and Wang (2018) consider McDonald’s recent launch of new products along with some of the aspects of its production process and innovativeness.
The problem of customer knowledge is addressed as one of the crucial parameters according to which McDonald’s new product’s success should be measured. Although McDonald’s is currently facing issues with the quality of its product, the authors posit that the quality function deployment (QFD) strategy will help the company to address the issues related to compliance with the set standards for food production.
In their analysis of the issue, the authors use the systematic review as the main method of analyzing the issue and introducing a critical perspective on innovation and food production at McDonald’s. According to the authors, while the recent products designed by McDonald’s currently fail to impress customers with their quality due to the health issues that they may potentially cause, the use of the QFD function as the facilitator of more effective and ethical quality management will help the firm to instigate change within its organizational environment.
Thus, the further development of new products will not suffer from the lack of concern for the possible negative impacts that they may cause to customers’ health. As a result, McDonald’s will not receive as much negative publicity with its new products as it currently does. The integration of customer knowledge as the driving force behind the management of quality processes within the firm will allow McDonald’s to appeal to its customers and address their needs more effectively.
Reaction
The issue of quality management at McDonald’s and especially the development of healthier products has been the talking point of numerous discussions surrounding the company and its production processes. The article has offered an interesting and unique perspective on the ways in which the present situation with product quality and healthy food options at McDonald’s could be managed. However, the research would have benefitted even more from adding more focus to the discussion of how the QFD device would assist McDonald’s in building customer knowledge and introduce new and diverse products into its production line.
Additionally, the issue of customer knowledge seems to be rather vague as the tool for determining the choices that the company is going to make concerning the creation of new products. For firms such as McDonald’s, which has a well-established brand and a set of easily recognizable food options, adding a new meal that would be enjoyed by only a fraction of its target population does not seem sensible (Rindell, Santos, & de Lima, 2015).
At the same time, it is important to appeal to diverse groups and satisfy their tastes in food as well. Therefore, it will be reasonable for McDonald’s to create a middle ground based on which decision-making concerning new products will take place. By creating new products that will still incorporate the element of the corporate brand, McDonald’s will retain its current buyers and expand into other markets, gaining a customer base in new environments as well.
References
Dugmore, P., & Wang, Y. (2018). Product design in food industry – A McDonald’s case. International Workshop of Advanced Manufacturing and Automation, 8(1), pp. 448-452.
Rindell, A., Santos, F. P., & de Lima, A. P. (2015). Two sides of a coin: Connecting corporate brand heritage to consumers’ corporate image heritage. Journal of Brand Management, 22(5), 467-484.
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