McDonald’s invests aggressively in technology (2024)

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Dive Brief:

• McDonald’s is aggressively investing in digital and technology, President and CEO Chris Kempczinski said Monday, during a Q4 2023 earnings call.
• The fast food giant launched three technology platforms as part of a three-pronged strategy to transform customer experience, franchise operations and core systems, processes and tools, Kempczinski said.
• In December, McDonald’s partnered with Google Cloud to install AI-infused analytics capabilities and distributed cloud servers in thousands of its restaurants and tapped Accenture to help guide generative AI implementation.

Dive Insight:

McDonald’s isn’t new to cloud modernization.

The company leveraged AWS infrastructurein 2016 to build out its data platform and leaned on cloud to migrate and remake its customer experience through self-service kiosks, digital menu boards and machine learning personalizations.

McDonald’s expanded its deployments, adopting a multicloud strategy, two years later.

As modernization plans accelerated last year, the company poured $2.4 billion into capital expenditures, a 24% year-over-year increase, according to its Q4 2023 earnings report, for the three-month period ending Dec. 31. In 2022, the company’s investments declined to $1.9 billion, from $2 billion the prior year.

Prioritizing tech is part of a broader growth strategy, dubbed Accelerating the Arches, which aims to add 50,000 restaurantsto its portfolio by 2027 while enhancing analytics, AI and other digital capabilities.

Accenture will provide AI, data and edge compute training to ease workforce adoption, Brian Rice, McDonald’s EVP and global CIO, said in a December announcement.

“We’re going to continue to invest in the areas where we think we have strategic opportunities to drive greater efficiency,” McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said during the earnings call. “A lot of that work is going to be led by the Global Business Services organization that we stood up and is driving these transformation efforts in areas like HR, finance, tech and getting after spend opportunities in areas like indirect sourcing.”

Kempczinski said the company is aiming to “put the most intuitive technology in the hands of our restaurant teams” and drive efficiency through innovation.

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