Reference no: EM13805122

Responses should be a minimum of 200 words and include direct questions 

Despite the economic downturn in the late 2000's, McDonalds was one of the few companies who were able to still grow and make a profit. This can partly be attributed to their excellent supply chain management and regional product strategies (Kaufman, 2012). By tailoring products to cater to each market, they increase sales both regionally and internationally. For example in Germany, they sell the McRib is sold year round and a special burger is sold every month. This burger is catered to German taste, so they feature more European type flavors. 
They then reduce risk by franchising their name and have franchisees run each storefront (Mourdoukoutas, 2012). Like most international companies, each corporate location in different parts of the world is run by expats. These workers are highly educated and trained, so they are able to operate the remote locations uniformly across the world. Because of this expats are paid better than normal workers as they have to physically move to another country to have their skills leveraged. They are paid the wage of what they would have made back in their home country, plus all the extra bonuses. Likewise they also pay taxes in their home country as well. Since they work in the corporate setting and not customer facing, speaking the local language is usually not required for expats. On the other hand, local hired employees are paid based on the countries laws, not the home country of the company. This usually equates to much lower pay and benefits. 
References 
Kaufman, F. (2012). McDonald''s. Foreign Policy, (196), 52. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1112117599?accountid=8289 
Mourdoukoutas, P. (2012, April 20). McDonald''s Winning Strategy, At Home And Abroad. Retrieved August 6, 2015.