James Richard Cantalupo Quotes

You then get into a period a few years ago, where a lot of external factors that we didn’t have anything to do with did hit, and some of them at the same time… devaluations, weak economies, you name it, in various parts of the world.

You have got to have discipline and focus – on the customer and how you run the business.

When you’re doing that you lose your focus on the discipline of the business, and how you train people at Hamburger University, and everybody gets on a bigger, different vision, and they’re not on the same page.

When you raise prices, you’ve got to make sure you get it to the bottom line. You can fritter it away because of the way you’re running the business, with maybe not a totally disciplined approach.

We have very specific rules about how we go to market with children, and I think they are very responsible.

We cover hamburgers, chicken, veggie burgers, salads, we’ve got a pretty broad range. To me, McDonald’s isn’t only about the food. It’s about the prices, it’s about the way we eat.

The markets where we’ve got real good presence are the older, more mature markets like Australia, and Western Europe – where we’ve only got 6,000 stores, compared to the US with 13,000.

The fact of the matter is, most of our orders are not supersized. Less than five per cent are supersized – that’s never mentioned. The whole issue has been supersized itself.

Some of the analysts were saying, Now you’re a cash cow, there’s no growth at all, pay it all out in dividends, give me it all, you can’t invest wisely.

So Europe’s a big driver. And at one point, if the euro hadn’t devalued, they would have been making as much money as the US with half the stores. Returns were higher.

Salads was a big indicator of that – there was a huge market out there for it. And why not tap it? Some of the things we are doing now around the globe are responding to customers. It’s not because some guy sued you.

Ronald has had bicycle safety and safety in the home. Yes, Ronald is McDonald’s, second most recognised figure after Santa Claus, and there’s an element of obviously benefiting your business.

Playtime and toys are good for kids, or they wouldn’t buy them. McDonald’s can provide that experience. And having dinner with the family is good for kids.

McDonald’s is almost 50 years old. For 47 years we had a pretty consistent track record of being able to deliver admirable sales.

I think we’ll still be a family restaurant, we’ll be contemporary, we’ll be lifestyle, we won’t be old, we won’t be 60 years old in the view of the consumer.

I think we have a great track record on being relevant, on identifying consumer trends, needs and wants.

I think this year we’ll open up 900 gross, we’re closing some, so the net count is lower, but the 900 are spread all over the place. Some of the closures are relocations, where you’re moving it to another place in the marketplace.

I talked about 12 to 18 months, and that’s about reaffirming our foundation for sustained growth: getting the discipline back, getting the basics right, getting the customer focus back… so by the end of next year, I hope most of that’s in place.

Every year we close 300-400 stores anyway, just relocations.

But, on balance, we seized the marketplace. We’ve got a great infrastructure. And yes it’s struggling in some areas because of some external factors and some internal factors.