McDonald's Exec Touts Rebound

NEW YORK CITY-In 2002, McDonald’s was hitting a low point. Sales that year were flat, and much of the store base was aging.

“We were consumed with getting bigger and not getting better,” recalls Ralph Alvarez, president of North America operations for the Oak Brook, IL-based fast-food giant, who oversees about 15,000 eateries in the US and Canada. “We had taken our eyes off the basis of our business.”

Alvarez, speaking at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention & Expo, said that the company started assessing successful chains, such as Starbucks, as well as its own business, and then began a turnaround plan that has lasted into the present. Now the average McDonald’s brings in $2 million per year, $400,000 more than in 2002. November also marked the company’s 37th-straight month of positive, year-over-year same-store sales. (Executives will release December results today.)