McDonald's: Behind The Arches [Paperback]

John F. Love (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1995

McDonald's: it is the world's premier entrepreneurial success story, a company whose growth worldwide continues to be astonishing. In tough financial times, McDonald's proved that ingenuity, trial and error, and gut instinct were the keys to building a service business the entire world has come to admire. In the years since McDonald's: Behind The Arches was first published, McDonald's has been a trendsetter in advertising, focusing on different ethnic groups as well as the physically disabled. McDonald's created McJobs, a program that employs both mentally challenged adults and senior citizens. And because its franchisees have their fingers on the pulse of the marketplace, McDonald's has evolved successfully with the health food revolution, launching dozens of new products and moving toward environmentally-safe packaging and recyclable goods. Inspiring, informative, and filled with behind the scenes stories, this remarkable saga offers an irresistible look inside a great American business success.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Love presents a completely revised and updated version of the history behind the voracious hamburger empire.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"The history of the McDonald's system is the story of an organization that learned how to harness the power of entrepreneursnot several, but hundreds of them." This work is not the story of Ray Kroc, McDonald's colorful founder, but that of all of the individuals, including the McDonald brothers, suppliers, financiers, franchisees, as well as the early employees, who made McDonald's the undisputed champion of the fast food industry. The complex financial arrangements that were necessary to McDonald's success are made clear, as is the company's commitment to quality, service, and cleanliness. This entertaining work is highly recommended for most public and academic libraries. Michael D. Kathman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Collegeville, Minn.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Rev Sub edition (July 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553347594
• ISBN-13: 978-0553347593
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Behind Play Land and Ronald McDonald, May 6, 2003

By 

K. Johnson (US/Asia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McDonald's: Behind The Arches (Paperback)

The story behind the ubiquitous golden arches, and the man who expanded them coast to coast, (and today they reach the edges of the Earth). This book provides a reader friendly, detailed synopsis of McDonald's through decades of the original brothers, to Ray Kroc's entry and exit of what would become one of the most recognized oranizations of the world. (Whether this fact has positive or negative implications is another matter entirely). This is a good book about Mickey-D's and sheds light on many other aspects of American history, diet, culture, business and advertising.

Two brothers named McDonald went west to California from the north-east. They came with about about $8 dollars in their pockets (according to them) and got jobs moving props on movie sets in Hollywood (sound familiar?) After some initial business ventures the brothers opened their own small restaurant in San Bernadino.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest Ray Kroc left school at 16, and like almost all other achievers that reached his level of success, he had a strong work ethic and a hard-driving tenacity to succeed. Expecially at concepts that intially proved successful (hence SOP procedures). How ya build opon something that has a good and successful foundation. A gifted, successful salesman from an early age, he got a job selling paper cups and sold them for 17 years as one of the top salesman of his company. Some of his clients for example, were Wrigley field's vendors, among other Chicago establishments. In his late thirties, he started selling shake mixers. McDonald's comes into the picture when Kroc noticed that two brothers who owned a drive-in hamburger restaurant in Southern California, kept ordering lots of shake mixing machines, when Kroc's mixer business was dying out everywhere else in the country. He met the McDonald brothers and was greatly impressed by their practices. Ray implored them to expand and they replied "who'd want to do it, we don't," and Kroc became the seller of their franchises in the Midwest. He was very successful at establishing McD's in that part of the country (hint).

For his work he didn't earn a lot because of the deal he made with the brothers (an inkling of what was to come). So he added a creative and logical way to profit from his diligent work in spreading the franchises. He formed a separate corporation, and when setting up franchises he'd purchase the property where a new McDonald's was to be built, from his own original corporation he created. (Read Robert Kiyosaki's "Loophoes of the Rich" for details). So, with his corporations being the owner of the property, Kroc would either collect the rent, or a percentage of the restaurant's profits, whichever was greater, by contract structure. This allowed him to be compensated more fully in addition to his original deal with the McDonald brothers, which wasn't the most favorable.

Kroc was selling the franchises and focusing on keeping the model and SOPs identical for every franchise. Perhaps an analogy to the assembly line of the Ford. Kroc had a methodology. If a winning method was not altered or diluted by individualistic owner operators or franchise restaurants here and there across the country, the sales, expansion, and growth would continue. McDonald's had tapped into what a large part of the American public wanted in post WWII America. Ray later bought McDonald's from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million cash. When he discovered after the deal was finished that the original McD restaurant in San Bernadino was not included, and was to be kept by the brothers, Kroc had forced them to change their restaurant's name on legal grounds, and then and built a franchise across the street to put them out of business. The brothers asked for this, and likely didn't understand 3 major things: 1. ethical business practices 2. the law 3. common sense.

Advertising: to help solidify more growth and consumer loyalty, Kroc knew the value of kids. He hired top advertising people: enter Ronald McDonald. After some marketing tests in some particular regions, came the major nationwide promotion to get the kiddies pleading with their parents that they wanted to go to Mickey-Ds. Have you heard kids clamour their parents to do this? I have. And today, McDonald's has continued the kid-concept by investing large amounts into the Playgrounds added onto many of its' stores.

McDonald's represents many things about American culture. To Americans, and today throughout the world. No matter what you think of Mickey D's it's quite an interesting story of how it started, evolved and came to it's ubiquity today. It's a fact that those golden arches are more recognized than the Christian cross. Again, whether we think that's good or not leads to several other issues involving, chemicals and food science, general health, obesity, globalization, homogenization, marketing to children, and corporatization.

For additional insights into the McDonald's phenomenon read, Jennifer Talwar's "Fast Food, Fast Track" and Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal," and Fumento's "Fatland."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, January 15, 2000

By 

Jack Reynolds (Irvine, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: McDonald's: Behind The Arches (Paperback)

Story telling at its best. I couldn't put it down. Miller was given access to inside information about the company far beyond anything I have read anywhere else.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a solid job, May 5, 2005

By 

Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: McDonald's: Behind The Arches (Paperback)

You know how there have been some searing indictments of McDonald's in the last few years, ranging from "Fast Food Nation" to that movie "Supersize Me"?

Well, this book ain't in that category.

Not that this is an OFFICIAL biography of McDonald's or anything, no. It's just that the author is a little too professional to get into the kind of vicious nitpicking that you might expect, given recent lurid developments (obesity lawsuits, bombings of McDonald's, etc.).

No, this book is more of a mature, considered chronicle of the overall health and strategy of the corporation as a whole than a series of cheap take-downs.

True, Love does criticize McDonald's from time to time, but it's not in particularly vicious terms. For example, in the later chapters, he analyzes in some depth the company's ill-fated diversification strategy in the early 90s. He also happily delves into several of Kroc's kooky, doomed ideas.

Unfortunately, many of the "minor hiccoughs" in the company's recent history (e.g., that French farmer that raised a ruckus, that British couple who have devoted their lives to taking them down) are so well-known and fascinating that their absence is keenly felt. And what interesting reading they would have made, given Love's scholarship and even-handedness.

So, while Love is willing, from time to time, to cast a negative light on McDonald's, for the most part the book is a straight macroeconomic history by a man who obviously admires but is not overly-reverential of one of the world's greatest corporations.

If you find that to your liking, you will certainly declare the book an entertaining and useful read -- especially if you're stuck having to write a serious, no-nonsense paper about the chain's corporate strategy, say for a business class.