The “technology outage” that impacted McDonald’s restaurants and the company’s app on Friday underscores the fast-food giant’s growing reliance on tech systems that are becoming increasingly common in the food service industry.
Friday’s outage impacted McDonald’s locations across some of its global markets, including Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom, which forced many stores to temporarily accept only cash or shut down entirely in some cases.
The company hasn’t disclosed how widespread the outages were, but a franchise in San Antonio, Texas, couldn’t accept orders in its app or cash as of Friday afternoon – 12 hours after it began.
McDonald’s said the outage was caused by an unnamed third-party provider during a “configuration change.” The outage comes shortly after McDonald’s filed its annual report referenced the potential challenges to its operations posed by technology outages.
“We are increasingly reliant upon technology systems, such as point-of-sale, that support our business operations, including our digital and delivery solutions,” McDonald’s wrote in the report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission filed on Feb. 22.
“Any failure or interruption of these systems could significantly impact our or our franchisees’ operations, or our customers’ experiences and perceptions,” the company added.
