Introduction
McDonald is one the largest fast food chain introduced in 1940. Though it might be the largest, it’s not as popular as In-N-Out which was introduced in 1948. In-N-Out is located in most of the western part of United States and is not likely to expand towards eastern part sooner. Personally if I have choose between McDonald’s and In-N-Out, I would always give heads up for In-N-Out. They deliver the best burgers without using any preservatives. It’s fresh, cheap and employees are customer friendly.
Explanation: Business and Marketing Operations
First, all In-N-Out branches are private family owned and not franchised. This helps them maintain control over food quality and cleanliness. Second, they follow the policy of Make-To-Order and have no freezers and microwaves ensuring quality food is delivered to customers as and when the orders are placed. Serving only fresh food minimizes the kitchen equipment reducing the capital expenditures. They have limited menu and can entirely rely on fresh ingredients reducing wastage. Customization of orders are respected which means they never say no to customers. Third, every store is located within 500 mile radius of patty making facility and distribution center. It’s not unusual to say that, the taste gets inconsistent but the quality always remains consistent! Even the employees are paid better, $10.50 per hour and are provided with better benefits. These are some of the factors which explains the reason behind lesser locations.
On the other hand, McDonalds follows franchise model. They have a wide range of menu with Make-To-Stock policy and very few common suppliers. With Make-To-Stock policy the process of delivering food becomes faster. To be precise, it’s lesser than a minute as they do not entertain order customizations. Employees are paid around $9 per hour. These are some of the important factors which explains its number of locations.
How visualization could be improved?
The whole idea of visualization is that it should convey more in less. The visualization shows the number of locations In-N-Out and Mc Donald has in two different bar graphs. To make it more effective, I would join the two bar graphs and compare the number of locations state-wise. The circular graph is redundant, even though it depicts number of locations city wise marked in same color if they belong to the same state. Instead, it could be better to incorporate these cities in bar graph. Also, geographically, Mc Donald’s locations should be shown along with In-N-out. Depending on the number of locations every state has, it could be shown by different sizes of circles. For example, if a state has bigger circle it means there are more burger locations.
References:
Visualization can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6256732224734011392/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/lynsi-torres-in-n-out_n_2759920.html
https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/in-n-out-the-freshest-friendliest-fast-food/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/in-n-out-burger-tableau-dashboard-nick-manley
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-10-02/in-n-out-doesn-t-want-to-be-mcdonald-s
http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/02/n-can-pay-lot-minimum-wage-cant-mcdonalds/
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-in-n-out-burger-wont-expand-east-2015-4