Unit 1 – Business Environment
P4 - Explain how their style of organisation helps them to fulfil their purposes
In this task I will be explaining the McDonalds business, covering how their organisational structures and strategic planning process has helped them to fulfil their purposes and aims.
How the structure of McDonalds have helped them to achieve their aims and purpose:
McDonald’s organisational structure is hierarchical. This structure consists of multiple levels which means that McDonalds business structure would have a chain of command in the diagrammatic representation of a pyramid, with a large base of workers, who are then supervised by the smaller level above them, who are then supervised by the level above them, until it goes all the way to the top of the pyramid. Basically, anything that can be broken down into layers of levels which range from broad to specific can be considered hierarchical. This organisational structure is best for McDonalds because they are a worldwide fast food restaurant and they need a secure control over the whole business and the hierarchical structure lets that happen. This has helped McDonalds to fulfil their purposes and aims because without a secure control, McDonalds would not be able to function properly. The hierarchy also shows the clear division of work and the lines of control and communication. McDonalds have different functional areas like: finance, marketing, production, customer service, sales and human resources. In these different areas, the employees that work in those areas specialise only in that area which means that they will know exactly what to do. Each of these functional areas will have its own line of control and communication so that the functional areas don’t get mixed up with work. Because of the way it is set out, it is easier to control and manage the different functions properly and check their progress.

How the strategic planning process of McDonalds has helped them achieve their aims and objectives:

Strategic planning:
Strategic planning is when an organisation goes through a process of defining its strategy and making decisions to carry this strategy out. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy.

Mission and values:
A part of McDonald's mission and values is to “centre on an exceptional customer experience including: People, Products, Place, Price and Promotion. We are committed to continuously improving our operations and enhancing our customers' experience.” This has helped McDonalds to fulfil their purpose and aims because their aim is to improve customer experience and in the mission its states how they are doing that with “People, Products, Place, Price and Promotion.” The business knows what they need to do in order to bring more customers in so they base their aim and objective around that. This also shows that McDonalds is always willing to change and become better for their customers as they are their main priority.

Development of strategic aims and objectives:
A strategic objective is a defined objective that an organisation must achieve to make its strategic aim succeed. Strategic objectives are externally focused and fall into eight categories: Market standing, Innovation, Human resources, financial resources, Physical resources, Productivity, Social responsibility and Profit requirements. This has helped McDonalds to fulfil their purposes and aims because this strategy breaks down into different categories so McDonalds would have to take all of these areas into consideration before developing their strategic aim and objectives. It’s good to have strategic aims and objectives because it fully explains what you need to do in a lot of detail. A business needs a proper set out aim and objective to give the business a sense of direction.

Cascading of objectives throughout the organisation:
Cascading of objectives throughout the organisation means the down flow of objectives throughout the organisation. This has helped McDonalds to fulfil their purposes and aims because it means that all employees will know what the objective is and they can all help to achieve it. McDonald’s business structure is hierarchical, so the down flow of information is set out clearly. The people at the top of the hierarchical pyramid will be the ones to make the decisions and objectives, which will then be passed down to the slightly bigger level underneath, which will then be passed down to the next level below until it reaches the bottom of the pyramid, when everyone will have heard the information. This can also be a disadvantage because communication can get lost or disrupted as it flows down the levels which can be bad and lead to wrong information being passed down the hierarchical structure.

Use of SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, resourced, time-bound) objectives:
This strategy makes sure that the objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, resourced and time-bound. This has helped McDonalds to fulfil their purposes and aims because this strategy of SMART will make the objective very detailed and it will have all the information it needs in there to carry out the objective and succeed success. It will also be time-based which is good as you need to have a time-base as it will let you check your progress of how far you have come to completing the objective and slowly reaching the aim.