McDonald’s realises the potential for growth in international markets and plans to benefit from lessons that they learned in the USA. For example, they used to add 300-400 restaurants a year, every year, in the USA regardless of circumstances. It was a strategy that created a gap between them and the competition. However, they realise looking back that they could have built even more restaurants at a time when competition was not so great. This would have meant that a lot of those “other” restaurants could have been McDonald’s. They have applied this lesson to their rapidly growing international business, especially in markets where competition is not so strong. For example, McDonald’s added 415 restaurants in Japan, accounting for 25 per cent of system-wide restaurant additions in 1998. Longer-term, markets like China, Italy and Mexico are expected to represent a growing proportion of restaurant additions. Although this strategy is an example of globalisation, it is still clearly a “glocal” focus as McDonald’s can now share ideas, best practices and human resources across borders, thus further enhancing its competitive advantage and strengthening its leadership position.