McDonald ’ s Sweden is overhauling its IT infrastructure , placing the restaurant experience at the project ’ s core
The very nature of the multibillion-dollar global quick service restaurant ( QSR ) industry is changing , and technology is the driving force . For Anders Westling , IT Director and CIO of McDonald ’ s Sweden , over the course of the last 20 years through a number of digital , technology and management consultant focused roles , he has seen first-hand just how much the IT function has changed .
“ When I started , IT was seen as the responsibility of the tech guys who would deliver technology in bits and pieces ,” he says . “ If you wanted to deliver solutions within a company , you ’ d have to bring in many different vendors and you had to have in-house development in order to be able to deliver the requested services .”
As IT has become more mature , with companies boasting much more mature IT infrastructure , the “ bits and pieces ” model of approaching IT and technology has begun to disappear . “ More and more vendors have understood that IT can be delivered as a service , a one stop shop ,” says Westling . “ It becomes less of a technology conversation based on ‘ what ’ technology we need and centres much more around ‘ how ’ the business can be developed and how technology can support that .”
Westling joined McDonald ’ s in 2015 , having been headhunted based on his strong experience in the IT space . His task ? To restructure what he described as a malfunctioning IT infrastructure . His first observation was to look at how McDonald ’ s IT function supported , or in this instance isolated itself , from the delivery of McDonald ’ s services to its customers .
Westling notes that as an organisation , McDonald ’ s was “ more or less automated ”, with the
258 May 2018