Outsourcing a McDonalds Drive through.

In the World is Flat, Friedman describes how in the last few years a McDonald's within the United States has outsourced its drive through order takers to completely out of the state to help eliminate distractions and insure that the order is taken correctly and without mistakes.  While it is shown that it is has been beneficial to do this and the amount of mistakes have been decreased, but I just wonder how and why this needs to happen.

The Idea of outsourcing a McDonald's drive through to somewhere not even in the same state seems completely absurd to me.  If a person is not capable of taking a drive through orders without making little or no mistake they should not be working there.  While working at a fast food restaurant is not as easy as many people play it off to be, it should not be taken to the point where it is necessary to outsource a job of taking orders to a different location.

I can't imagine what ordinary jobs will be outsourced to within the United States.  If jobs where it is required for an employee to simply just listen as best as possible to a customer and decipher what they want need to be outsourced then what jobs are next.  Will human cashiers soon be replaced by automated money taking machines.  Will waiters in restaurants be replaced by computers that customers simply choose from the menu on the computer and place their orders.  I think that either of these could be distinct possibilities if they are cost effective based on what is happening with this McDonald's.

Chris Moore

Comments

[Adina Genn]

While you might be right about outsourcing, drive-thru's will be a big part of McDonald's success globally, as CEO Jim Skinner points out in my book, "Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald's." Perhaps it will take a bit of trial and error for big corporations and small businesses alike to figure out the best way to maximize profits and serve the community, local worfkorce included.

[Stevens Amidon]

The automated money machines could be a good idea for McDonalds. It would make the process much faster and more efficient. Some jobs may be lost, but there will still have to be workers that make the food and deliver it to the tables or to the drive up window. In the world today everything is going to computer technology.

KJR

[AME]

Cash registers are already basically automated order and money taking machines. The only thing that would need to change is the format of the machine. They would just have to change it into an atm type machine rather than the original cash register pop-out design. Also, online shopping is also similar to this. Sometimes it is just nice to get out and see people whether you interact with them or not and to get into a different environment. Anyways, although these may seem like good business decisions because they are more efficient in terms of time and money; there is much more to business than that. If one business turns to this form of a restaurant, then all restaurants will have to just to compete and stay in business. This will in time remove the overlooked personal aspect of restaurants and stores. People will no longer ever need to come in contact with other people and lead to a boring, robotic, lonely, monotonous way of life. Everything will be the same everyday as everything is run by "mistake free" machines. It will take out the spontaneity of life. Even if sometimes the issues are irritating or whatever else, people still unconsciously appreciate the differentiation from day to day of having different cashiers, waiters, servers, and etc. If everyone turns to everything automated then life will become automated and lose its point as everything that happens from day to day will be set way in advance. And the more jobs that are lost, the less rich our country becomes as our government will lose a huge part of its income. People who have jobs will complain more because they will have to be taxed more. Also, anything can be automated even the serving portion, I'm sure not too long ago no one though as much would be automated today as it is. The only thing the workers do is actually move the food. Robotic hands can easily be toyed with enough to do this. And assembly line type delivery systems could ship the food to the counter. Or a preprogrammed table could be programmed to have the customer type in what table he/she is sitting at and have the food brought to that table. Anything can be eventually automated as we can program computers to do everything we know so even a psychologists could be automated, it would just have an a variety of possible responses when you told it what you were thinking or going through.

http://techfinder.businessweek.com/search/keyword/businessweek/Restaurant%20Automation/Restaurant%20Automation

AME