McDonald's (China) Pioneer Founder Zhang Yiwu: Catering Enterprises Should Make "Building Processes" the Development Focus for the Next Five Years

How can AI process upgrades help restaurant companies achieve scalable replication?

On March 24, the 2026 China Catering Industry Festival and the 35th HCC Global Catering Industry Expo, jointly organized by the World Federation of Chinese Catering and Hongcan Network, opened at the Hangzhou Convention and Exhibition Center. During the “Third China Catering Leaders Strategy Closed-Door Meeting,” Hongcan Network invited McDonald’s China co-founder and bestselling author of “The Process Code,” management training expert Zhang Yiwu, to share in-depth insights on the theme “Process Upgrades—The Genes for Replicability in Chain Enterprises.” The core ideas include: liberating managers through processes, using processes to mass-produce talent, stabilizing quality and service with processes, and achieving scale through standardization.

△McDonald’s China Co-founder Zhang Yiwu

Zhang Yiwu stated that to achieve excellence, restaurant companies must first “stand out” and then “expand widely.” During the startup phase, companies should find top talent, relying on people’s ideas to drive growth; in the growth phase, they should rely on processes to realize scalable replication; and in the mature phase, companies will have the capacity to incubate multiple brands.

“Standing out” means that store managers, regional managers, and headquarters leaders must dare to “set the bar high,” recruiting more highly educated or capable talent. “Who says the restaurant industry doesn’t need 985 graduates? Without smart brains, a company’s ideas will stagnate, making it hard to grow strong and far. McDonald’s top executives are a group of outstanding talents,” Zhang said.

He emphasized, “The core of enterprise management is not relying on a single talented individual or a ‘god-level’ expert, but on a complete set of processes that replicate talent and cultivate a continuous cycle of prosperity.”

Zhang Yiwu particularly reminded that any repetitive work in a company is worth formalizing into a process, especially key, difficult, or problematic tasks. Examples include ordering processes, talent development processes, interview procedures, problem-solving workflows, and crisis management protocols. Frontline staff should focus on operational processes, middle management on personnel processes, and senior leadership on strategic thinking processes. The most critical processes are the frontline operational ones, which directly impact customer satisfaction and whether customers return. Companies lacking processes will find middle managers missing the most important management tools.

How are processes designed? Zhang Yiwu explained that the best employees in the company should be identified, and their top-tier experience extracted and replicated for every ordinary employee. This is called “one person’s experience benefits everyone.” Once a process is implemented, the previous “ceiling” of experience becomes the baseline for all employees. Simply put, with processes, “guerrilla teams” instantly become “special forces.”

“Using processes to replicate talent is the essential path for organizational growth,” Zhang said. The success of McDonald’s lies in this—building a comprehensive management system for fast food: strategic system, talent development system, supply chain management, personnel management, food safety, and operations management. It’s a complete system package.

With a passion for strengthening China’s catering industry through processes, Zhang Yiwu said, “When Chinese companies reach 50% of American management standards in process construction, China’s economic scale will be four times that of the U.S., which is an immeasurable value.” He pointed out that companies should look beyond the present and think five years ahead: “If you could replicate your business tenfold, what would your company be missing?”

Zhang Yiwu divides corporate competition into three levels: third-tier companies compete on profit, second-tier on talent, and first-tier on systems. “Money and talent are only temporary; the system for replicating talent is eternal. That’s why at McDonald’s, the fame of the owner is small, but the processes are well-known. This is what we call ‘retreating capable people, advancing processes.’”

The key to process implementation lies in three aspects: process design, training, and supervision. These form a stable tripod supporting the company’s replication.

Finally, Zhang Yiwu advised that restaurant companies should focus on processes as the foundation and core for future five-year chain expansion. Companies without proper processes are merely “linked but not locked.” Additionally, accelerate high-end talent deployment in the next two years—select the best and upgrade processes. Left hand: processes; right hand: talent. People + processes = talent.

Zhang Yiwu emphasized that truly achieving large-scale replication from 1 to 10,000 depends solely on processes. Say goodbye to traditional rough SOPs and look to McDonald’s for the secrets of high-quality processes. When processes are right, efficiency doubles!