McDonald's New Turnaround Plan Is So 1990s

In a period of lasting difficulty for McDonald's, with U.S. same-store sales dropping over consecutive quarters, executives turn to regionalized menus, made-to-order burgers, and speed to bring the world's largest burger chain out of a multi-quarter slump. Sound familiar? It's almost an exact match for McDonald's modern-day woes and current turnaround strategy. But all of the details above come from a 1997 interview with a McDonald's executive about reforms at the chain.

Not much has changed in 17 and a half years. Even the language used by McDonald's executives has uncanny echoes across the decades. McDonald's ''needs to operate with more speed, agility and decisiveness,'' wrote then-Vice Chairman Jack Greenberg in a 1997 memo leading up to decentralized decision-making by five divisional presidents. Here's how Michael Dean Andres, McDonald’s new U.S. president, explained the current revival plan to investors last month: “We have to be more nimble, we have to be faster, faster to market with new ideas, and more responsive to competitive threat." Andres added: “[W]e've moved from the former division structure into a different model focused on empowering and supporting our regions.”