During the summer of 2019, Italians’ didn’t show much appetite for a meal from American fast food giant McDonald’s. The reason was a failed attempt at being funny in another, neighboring market – Austria. While McDonald’s promotions in the United States often focus on price and value, it has become common in other countries to […]
With almost 500 stores, India is an important foreign market to McDonald’s. Not too long ago, it was praised in India for its responsiveness to Indian tastes. After having had items such as the Maharaja Mac and the Aloo-Tikki Burger on its menus in India since the 1990s, the fast-food giant added more offerings to woo […]
According to a variety of news outlets, California-based restaurant chain Johnny Rockets is planning for a major expansion in China. The 1950s themed chain currently has more than 300 corporate- and franchise-owned restaurants, about a third of which are in international locations. For the expansion, the company already entered into a joint venture agreement with […]
Today’s Wall Street Journal (European Edition) ran an interesting piece on the Chinese market for fast food. Many domestic and regional competitors, so the Journal, are giving foreign fast food giants such as McDonald’s and KFC / Yum Brands a run for their money. Competitors such as Xiabu Xiabu (which serves Chinese hot pot), Da […]
Most of the time, it catches my eye when companies fail internationally. This focus on failure may be the result of my academic training, and it may have something to do with my cultural roots. However, every once in a while I am really intrigued, even fascinated, by how smart some companies are. Hermes International […]
Ever since Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize winning author, published “The World is Flat“, we have been listening to the mantra of the world becoming a completely level playing field for companies for many years now. Other authors such as Pankaj Ghemawat continue to remind us that we’re still quite far from a borderless world, […]