Thursday, July 12, 2007

Can American Fast Food Restaurants Learn from Chinese?


Chinese entrepreneurs learned from American CEO's the value of substituting lower cost components into making products. Many U.S. companies hired low wage Chinese workers as their American counterparts were too expensive. We've already seen the impact of CEO greed in the thousands of publicly traded companies that backdated stock options to optimize executive pay and cheat shareholders. Chinese manufacturers substituted dangerous lower cost ingredients in pet food, toothpaste and car tires.

The AP revealed a small Chinese bun producer cheated their customers similarly. The vendor made his delictable treat with 6 parts cardboard to 4 parts meat. Should McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's return the copying trend, they could begin adding cardboard to their buns. Who'd be the wiser?

As for the Chinese, one of their latest steps to improve quality was to execute a high government official. You'd think they would hire quality experts instead. It's obvious a culture change is badly needed in both China and American boardrooms. Both have a funny texture and bad aftertaste...

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