McDonald's shares hit an all-time high on Tuesday as Wall Street expects sales to increase from new digital ordering kiosks that will replace cashiers in 2,500 restaurants.
Cowen raised its rating on McDonald's shares to outperform from market perform because of the technology upgrades, which are slated for the fast-food chain's restaurants this year.
McDonald's shares rallied 26 percent this year through Monday compared to the S&P 500's 10 percent return.
Andrew Charles from Cowen cited plans for the restaurant chain to roll out mobile ordering across 14,000 U.S. locations by the end of 2017. The technology upgrades, part of what McDonald's calls "Experience of the Future," includes digital ordering kiosks that will be offered in 2,500 restaurants by the end of the year and table delivery.
"MCD is cultivating a digital platform through mobile ordering and Experience of the Future (EOTF), an in-store technological overhaul most conspicuous through kiosk ordering and table delivery," Charles wrote in a note to clients Tuesday. "Our analysis suggests efforts should bear fruit in 2018 with a combined 130 bps [basis points] contribution to U.S. comps [comparable sales]."
Personally I don't like our kiosks. Nor do I look forward to our changes with the quarter beef patty or mobile ordering. Things within McDonald's are alread difficult enough to juggle especially when the store is under staffed. Many of our guests refuse to use the kiosks simply because they seem hard or difficult. I find them quite easy but I am on this forum so...that said being a McDonald's employee, I don't look forward to a lot of things going forward
Honestly, this is no different the big kid beating up the runt on the playground.
I mean this in no disrespect - but it's likely the people who are being replaced by these robots don't have a substantially rich set of "modern marketable skills" or whatever the "future speak" cliches corporate people use nowadays. These people Most likely don't have a PHD, masters, or bachelor degree for backup. And, judging by the wages I'm assuming they're making, most likely can't afford these degrees.
Wow... what an accomplishment, taking already disadvantaged people, likely struggling, and really sticking it to them by taking their jobs. And why?
All they're doing is taking the money that would have gone to say 10,000 already poor people and channled it up to make like 25 maybe 30 really rich people richer.
And I may be a total asshole for saying all that, who knows- the people at McD's may be making more money than me for all I know because I don't work there. But I have an inkling they don't.
So to summarize this is bullshit. And the automation devs are getting really annoying because, going back to my original comparison, they are the nerds tucked away but looking on in fear saying to each other "hey at least it's not me."
Edit
Hey at least we can all go drive for Uber... at least for now...
Die commerce die. All companies do is slash jobs to increase profits. They don't give a crap about anything but that. Also what needs to be done is we need to see people instead of harming people destroy tech that just isn't needed and is taking away jobs. Hell I am talking about more than some ordering terminals at McDonald's. This idea that this was inevitable that these jobs would be lost is because people think this is just the way the world has to go. Well based on history seeing man do the same things over and over again sure as heck hasn't led to us having a world where everyone is taken care of and everyone is happy so it is time for a revolution. I would gladly help in the destruction of things that are taking away jobs if there were groups out there doing it.
I have a wonderful idea. Why don't they take all that money they'll be saving and reinvest it in training the workers they're axing to learn to code to fix all the bugs, maintain the code bases and update those stupid kiosks.
It's lingo like that which makes me want to move to a non-English speaking country so I can not suffer from bureaucratic and corporate buzzword induced nausea anymore.
BTW - I mean this sincerely- I know I've been ranting but thanks for posting this.
It's really easy to use though and you can take all the time you want, also I usually get my orders faster. Overall it's a fast and convenient way of ordering food. The $15 minimum wage really fast tracked the automation of these kiosks.
It may be easy to use and a time saver, but I want to help spread the wealth, not consolidate it into the hands of the corporatocracy. The jobs of our kids futures are at stake. And while I'd like to think that we could train all those that will get laid off to fix the machines that replaced them, that isn't going to happen. Machines are cheaper to run and that means that there will be less jobs, not an equivalent amount of tech jobs to replace. Perhaps there will be some other jobs to be found, but I think that until all the boomers die off low skilled jobs are going the way of the dodo. Of course this will all be moot when AI takes over the world in 10 or 15 years.
While I'm all for protecting jobs and stuff, I'm somewhat of a realist. Refusing to use these kiosks when its already there is somewhat futile. It's going to happen sooner or later. I believe that all we can do is delay it or have some kind of legislation against it, but as I said it's inevitable. But I'm pretty sure that in 5 to 10 years time new types of jobs will be formed, also I believe that low skilled jobs for humans will always have a part in the society.
Pretty funny that originally what got them noticed was doing away with table delivery in an age where every restaurant did that. And now we are back. The circle is complete.
On the kiosk thing though. I am always amazed that riots do not break out in McDs over here. You order on a touch screen and then just stand in a crowd at the counter anyway but not in a queue, just lots of hungry impatient people standing together getting served in any order. It is way more horrible than it used to be to eat there. But never really liked that anyway.
Oh no, unskilled labor going away! I'm sorry but we've all seen this coming from a mile away. Some of you shouting "muh jobs" have to see this from a corporate point of view and not a personal perspective.
McDonald's sales have been dropping, and along the drive for a $15 min wage along with a unionizing push are all huge reasons why cashiers and drive thrus are gonna turn into capacitive touch screens. It can be seen as greed but it can also be seen as a company trying to stay ahead of the curve.
Let's say each Kiosk replaces 2 people. So in total 5000 people will become redundant. Few years down the line I would love to know how many of those 5000 will suddenly become creative and make living by being an artist or highly skilled programmer, architect or doctor. I promise you the number will be pretty fucking low.
Comments like this one always piss me off. Yes there will be new jobs but the number of them will be so small it's not gonna help. Look at the mini factory in Oxford. There used to be 14000 people working on cars. Once the factory adopted new technology like robotic arms. The number of employees went down to 4000. And fitting all the components together to make a working car is not a low skilled work. People just don't realize that for every 1 new job created there will be ~100 jobs lost.
