Word: greenbergs
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McDonald's serves jillions of Happy Meals each year, but not many are being shared around the company's pleasant headquarters in a Chicago suburb these days. "There's no question we've been under more stress than we're used to," says McDonald's USA chairman Jack Greenberg, who runs the company's 12,100 domestic restaurants...
...happy to go elsewhere for their junk-food fix: to Burger King for arguably better burgers, to Wendy's for better variety, to Starbucks and Einstein Bros. for better coffee and bagels in the morning, and to Boston Market or any number of gussied-up supermarkets for dinner. Says Greenberg: "I really believe our restaurants are running better today than we were six years ago; but I think our competition is also running a lot better today than they were six years...
...company has been raising some prices selectively, and consumers have begun to stray. "Comp sales," an internal company statistic that tracks performance in existing stores, turned negative for six consecutive quarters through the third quarter of 1996, an unheard-of reversal for a company that lives on growth. Greenberg had to improve McDonald's value equation fast. "The question is, What do you do about that? Lower prices a couple of cents on everything, or go on TV and talk about 55[cent] meals?" He called the media department and got out the price...
...pressure led to a shake-up last October, when McDonald's CEO and chairman Michael Quinlan brought in Greenberg. He carries an unlikely pedigree--he was an attorney and accountant at Arthur Young who moved over to his client, McDonald's, as chief financial officer in 1982. He spent lots of time building the financial structures needed for the company's overseas development, but has little experience in burger warfare. That's part of his charm. "I don't feel defensive," he says...
...company's "Campaign 55" promotion that also offered Big Mac sandwiches for 55 cents if you also buy fries and a drink. Many restaurant owners say that initiative hasn't worked, charging that sales were down for the first three weeks of May. Although McDonald's chairman Jack Greenberg dismisses stories of franchisee unrest as "a guy with a fax machine and eight guys with lawsuits," the corporation has found relations with local operators increasingly hard to digest. The company that used to closely follow founder Ray Kroc's dictum that McDonald's would only be as successful...