Mcdonald’s Shuffles Management Cards

McDonald’s Corp., faced with increasingly intense competition, hopes to get leaner and meaner by reorganizing its U.S. management structure into regional zones, news reports said today.

The Oak Brook-based fast-food chain plans to replace its eight American zone managers with a smaller number of national divisions, each operating more autonomously with their own president, The New York Times reported, citing an internal memo written by company vice chairman Jack Greenberg.

The plan would shift the “kinds of direction and support” the company provides franchises and help cut the bureaucratic tangle that leads to months of decision-making, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.