Process essay
Ray Kroc story
Pedro Sousa
Level 7 UPP
Marika Cooper
April 16th, 2014
“If I had a brick for every time I’ve repeated the phrase Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value, I think I’d probably be able to bridge the Atlantic Ocean with them” (Kroc, n.d.). It was with a lot of ambition, business experience and will to succeed that 52 year-old Raymond Albert Kroc turned a local restaurant from San Bernardino, California into the biggest and most profitable restaurant franchise in the world: McDonald’s. According to McDonalds.ca (2014), this restaurant can be found in 119 countries, with more than 33,000 local restaurants, serving over 64 million people every day. That is why it is easy to see the reason that McDonald’s is leading the foodservice retailer in the world. Ray Kroc can be found in almost every good business book, either because of his entrepreneur skills or because of his famous sayings. Even though Kroc became very rich and successful, his life was not always that way. “I was an overnight success all right, but 30 years is a long, long night” (Kroc, n.d.). At the age of 15, Ray Kroc lied about his age so he could join the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in 1917. Unfortunately for him, by the time he finished his training, the war was over. After that, he had a lot of different jobs such as a piano player, radio DJ, a paper cup salesman and a multi-mixer salesman. As a multi-mixer salesman, a job for which Kroc invested his entire life savings to become the exclusive distributor, Raymond Kroc happened to do business with the McDonald brothers. Their restaurant was operating eight multi-mixers at the same time and serving their customers in a speed Kroc had never seen. He was mesmerised by the efficiency of the McDonald brothers’ work, the size of their menu and their consistent quality. With so many good attributes, Raymond Kroc saw in McDonald’s potential
References: McDonald’s. (2014). The history of the golden arches. Mcdonalds.ca Retrieved April 16, 2014 from http://www.mcdonalds.ca/ The Biography.com website. (2014). Raymond Albert Kroc biography. Thebiography.com Retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://www.biography.com/ Farfan, B. (2012). Quotations from Ray Kroc, world’s famous franchiser of McDonald’s fast food chain. Retailindustry.about.com. Retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://retailindustry.about.com/