Efficiency

In the following blog posts I will look at the efficiency dimension of McDonaldization and relate it to the event design, event management and my experience of the PCMA European Influencers Summit;

The meaning of efficient is ‘working or operating quickly and effectively in an organised way’ (Cambridge Dictionary 2018b). If a company was to maximise efficiency they would produce their goods quickly, effortlessly and on a largely increased scale (Ritzer 1998). The way in which to make your company efficient can be done in many different ways but the two ways I am going to focus on are streamlining the process and putting the consumer to work.

Streamlining the process refers to eliminating the seemingly unnecessary steps in the process of getting the finished product where ever possible (Ritzer 2017). In the fast food industry these areas can include where the livestock is farmed, the process in which the livestock is then distributed to the outlets, the serving of the food and the way in which the waste is disposed (Ritzer 2017). In McDonalds itself this can be seen as they have brought in self-service kiosks, where you place your own order and then make your way to the collection point, removing the need for till point servers; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL6dWNi-o7Q (Victor Kidd 2017). A great article that looks at a reason behind why McDonalds are bringing in these kiosks is by Brandon Weber (2018); https://bigthink.com/brandon-weber/the-secret-to-why-mcdonalds-is-adding-self-serve-kiosks-at-a-rapid-pace. An issue that can occur when trying to streamline your business is that the quality of the product or service can be reduced and the consumer may no longer enjoy the experience (Alfino et al. 1998). It is therefore important that the manager of the business has practices in place that will avoid this from happening.

The process of putting the consumer                  (IPSOS 2013)                  to work can result in either the need for less employees or simply putting those employees to a better use elsewhere (Ritzer 2017). This can again be seen through McDonalds with their self-service kiosks but also by many supermarket that have a large selection of self-checkouts. Although the concept of putting the consumer to work is on the rise there is still many doubts and concerns that accompany it. A study carried out by Consumer Reports (2015) shows that many people are still apprehensive about self-service machines as they are not always  straightforward to use and help is not always available as the employee is elsewhere, and it takes away the human interaction that many people desire.