McDonalds' new manager stands by old strategy

What can Karen Bishop, the new managing director of McDonald's Romania do with the legacy her predecessor Marian Alecu has left her - 60 restaurants, over 3,000 employees, and an around 100 million-euro business - on a market where Romanians' budgets are increasingly tight?

"The biggest mistake would be to change the strategy pursued so far. We need to grow, rely on development, because this is just the beginning," says Karen Bishop, exactly 15 years after the opening of the first McDonald's restaurant in Romania, on the ground floor of the Unirea shopping centre.

The current manager of the chain will not get to see the day when 15,000 people would storm into one restaurant - the number of customers all McDonald's restaurants manage to gather in one day at present, but there are growth opportunities "if you are flexible," Bishop says.

"We can for instance plan to launch new products in two years' time, but this can occur even sooner if the product is in demand. As far as advertising is concerned, it is good to invest when times are difficult. You may have affordable prices every day, but you have to make sure all customers know that. Some things need to be sped up, others slowed down," Karen Bishop believes.