McDonald's China

MCDONALD’S CHINA

McDonald’s, a household name in the fast food industry and an iconic global brand, operates with significant presence in Asia/Pacific. McDonald’s business model enables them to consistently deliver locally relevant consumer experiences through licensing and franchise operations. In China, McDonalds is expanding rapidly to meet growing demand, and this growth is dependent upon having efficient, scalable, and reliable processes for engaging and closing franchise deals.

SITUATION

Licensing and franchise development is a key strategic initiative in driving the success and expansion of McDonald’s China, so they needed to adopt purpose driven processes that allowed for collaboration with a numerous third parties – from architects to consulting firms to potential franchisees. Document exchange between these partners consists of highly confidential materials, and the security and reliability of their selected information storage platform is crucial for McDonald’s China during each strategic engagement. The company would securely exchange and review information on this content collaboration platform to help guide key stakeholders in making decisions regarding investments and franchising opportunities, so engaging a market leader in the space would be necessary.

SOLUTION

Intralinks provides McDonald’s China with a reliable method of exchanging confidential business documents on a regular basis. “Intralinks gives us a platform to do that securely,” says a spokesperson for the McDonald’s China team. Intralinks offers a robust set of security and compliance features that helps them mitigate operational risk during each strategic event. The McDonald’s China team also favors the Intralinks user-friendly interface. Simple, intuitive features make it easy to do bulk uploads and downloads of files. Since Intralinks VDRs handle this task with industry-leading security, it enables necessary peace of mind when dealing with third parties beyond the firewall. An added bonus for the company is Intralinks’ customer support. “[Intralinks] customer service is always helpful and supportive,” says the spokesperson. “We communicate with them often on current databases – and future ones as well.”

BENEFITS

For the storage and exchange of highly confidential business information, Intralinks not only incorporates several layers of security that provide a complex barrier to threats, but it offers a means to greater efficiency. The bulk upload feature of the Intralinks user interface saved time for the McDonald’s China team when it came to transferring both large and small files. “I would estimate this feature gave us a 50% increase in time savings alone,” said a leading member of the franchise team. This benefit, paired with the Intralinks application, infrastructure, and process security features that mitigate risk, has become operationally key in helping McDonald’s China efficiently evaluate and execute on strategic franchising opportunities. “We continue to work with Intralinks because it’s easier, and very reliable,” adds the spokesperson. “Intralinks is – and continues to be – our preferred provider.”