McCalling for your burger?

FOOD: McDonald's new mantra for growing its business - 'If you can't come to us, we will come to you'

While pizza chains thrive on delivery, the same isn't true of other fast food chains. But lately, McDonald's has attempted to up the ante in its delivery operations.

After all, with changing consumption patterns and fast moving lifestyles, delivery services that offer convenience at your doorstep are now a necessity.

Although McDelivery has been around for the last three years, it is only recently that it woke up to the potential of delivery operations.

The fast food burger king recently announced a single access number for McDelivery, 66-000-666, and the initial response has been pretty good. Says Vikram Bakshi, managing director, Mcdonalds India (north and east), "The delivery dimension scores high on the brand's attributes and is the need of the hour."

The company has invested Rs 3 crore in setting up the system and Bakshi says it will invest a similar amount over the next three years as the business model expands.

McDelivery accounts for 5 per cent of sales and is one of the fastest growing platforms. Says Bakshi, "We expect the introduction of the single number and other focused marketing initiatives to fuel growth of at least 25 per cent a year over the next three years."

Marketing activities around the delivery system will be year round and across mediums. As Bakshi puts it, "The premise of McDelivery is essentially, 'If you can't come to us, we will come to you', and the communication strategy is based on this idea." A TV campaign, "Call for happiness", has already been on air for over a month.

Thus far, McDonald's has around 111 restaurants in India, on which it has invested about Rs 1,100 crore. It plans to spend over Rs 400 crore in the next three years "" Rs 100 crore in the east alone.

Bakshi informs that about 70 per cent of this will go towards expanding brand presence and introducing new formats, while 30 per cent will be spent on back-end operations.

Over and above these, there are plans of going to smaller cities as well as opening more restaurants along highways, apart from the ones at petroleum pumps.

Restaurants at railway stations and airports come next, and the first of these will be at the Old Delhi railway station and New Delhi domestic airport.