On a Friday, McDonald's globally faced significant technological issues that prevented franchise operators from opening their stores, accepting credit card payments, and receiving digital orders. The Chicago-based fast-food giant worked to resolve a global outage of its technology systems that affected customers and operators alike in countries such as the USA, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Hong Kong. These disruptions added further difficulties to the already existing challenges in sales.
The malfunction was quickly identified and corrected, as stated in a notice to global operators that The Wall Street Journal was able to review. The cause was reportedly a configuration change made by a third-party provider. Despite the technical issues, McDonald's emphasized that nearly all US restaurants were open Friday afternoon and serving customers. In the US, the technical issues prevented some branches from opening in the morning. Other locations were unable to accept digital orders via kiosks or the app and only accepted cash, while managers had to manually record transactions.
In Japan, Masao Sato, a systems engineer, tried to buy a hamburger at McDonald's in Tokyo's Shibuya district at noon when the ordering screen turned red and stopped accepting orders. Some customers began paying for their orders with cash, but the store was quickly overwhelmed by patrons and shut down by management. When Sato returned a few minutes later, a notice on the store's door indicated that the location was closed due to a server outage at some McDonald's branches.
The technical problems affected the entire company, with an estimated 9,000 of the 13,500 domestic restaurants in the USA impacted. Some operators in the USA demanded that McDonald's waive the monthly technology fees of about $1,000 per location due to the significant revenue losses per location they experienced.
The difficulties come at an inconvenient time for McDonald's, as the company had previously reported that financially struggling consumers and overseas challenges contributed to a slow start to business in 2024. Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden mentioned at an investor conference that some of the company's international markets, including China, France, and the Middle East, had a weak start to the quarter. He said the company expects sales growth in its own stores to lag behind that of the previous quarter in the current quarter.
Despite the Global Technical Outage and Associated Challenges, McDonald's Emphasizes Continued Efforts to Resolve and Fully Address the Issue. While McDonald's shares fell by 0.9% on Friday and the S&P 500 Index slipped by 0.7%, the company's rapid response to the crisis demonstrates its commitment to normalize operations and continue serving its customers.
