Our research presented in this paper has been limited to an analysis of the present state of McDonalds. Although there is a need for more longitudinal data, an important complementary study of that at hand would be to further penetrate how environmental factors such as market saturation impact SCM practices over time. Although not focused during the interviews to this research, a returning topic has been McDonald’s Sweden’s journey from market introduction, rapid growth, to a present situation with a high degree of market maturity. Together with some key suppliers McDonald’s has grown rapidly for a long period of time, and investments have been decided upon on a continuous basis with short pay-off times.
The fact that McDonald’s nowadays operates in a mature and saturated market means that investments have got longer pay-off times and are associated with higher risks. The question is therefore whether investments in the supply chain will decrease, and eventually lead to a stagnating supply chain.
Market saturation also means that new ways are searched for to continue growth and, in the extension, ensure more economies of scale. For McDonald’s, one important ingredient for this has in recent years been to encourage suppliers to increase their customer base, i.e. encourage them to have other customers than McDonald’s. With other customers beside McDonald’s, but still McDonald’s as their main customer, the intention is to gain further economies of scale and scope and thus share e.g. investments with other customers.
There is a risk however, that new customers, although they are not competitors to McDonald’s, will challenge the SCM practices described in this research. To increase the suppliers’ customer base, without loosing power and influence over the suppliers, may be a problematic act of balance. In terms of Cooper and Ellram’s (1993) SCM characteristics, it is therefore important to understand the way in which companies manages issues such as joint planning, corporate philosophies, as well as information sharing when third parties join the supply chain network with their own agenda, with specific demands on e.g. services, investments and quality.
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8 APPENDIX - INTERVJUGUIDE
En del frågor rörande skillnader mellan ”traditionella kedjor” och ”supply chains”
enligt Cooper and Ellram 1993: