Introduction
Mobile applications have become essential for businesses to stay competitive and connect directly and personally with their customers, optimizing the us
McDonald’s has harnessed this potential by developing its own mobile application, facing the challenge of efficiently managing and distributing it to millions of users worldwide. This is where Applivery plays a crucial role, providing an all-in-one solution that has been vital to the success of its app.
About McDonald's and Arcos Dorados
McDonald’s, founded in 1940, is one of the largest and most recognized fast-food chains globally, with restaurants in more than 100 countries and over 225 million customers annually. The company has grown into a global icon thanks to its focus on quality, consistency, and innovation.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, McDonald’s operations are run by Arcos Dorados, the largest McDonald’s franchisee worldwide, with over 2,200 restaurants in 20 countries. Arcos Dorados has been key in the brand’s expansion in the region, implementing innovative digital strategies like developing the McDonald’s app in Latin America, which has contributed to business growth and improved customer experience across all its markets.
McDonald's Challenge
Developing the McDonald’s mobile app has been one of the company’s most ambitious projects. Initially, the app was designed to offer users coupons and promotions at restaurants. However, it has evolved into a key part of their business, now including a loyalty system, promotions, and the ability to place orders and make payments online.
With over 24 million active users in 19 Latin American countries, the McDonald’s app proved to be a resounding success. However, as the platform expanded, managing and distributing its various versions to millions of users became a real challenge.
McDonald’s needed a solution to distribute versions of its app in an organized and synchronized manner among development teams, testers, and end users, while maintaining quality across all markets. Additionally, it faced strategic challenges in optimizing its digital platform, including segmenting promotions, increasing repeat purchases, and raising the average order value.
Applivery's Role
In this context, Applivery played a crucial role in the development of the mobile solution for McDonald’s, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the development team by facilitating various aspects of the workflow:
- Version Distribution
Applivery transformed how McDonald’s manages and distributes different versions of its app. The platform enables the segmentation of versions for internal testing (QA), special versions for Friends and Family (FF), and the production version, the final version ready for the market. This ensures that each one serves its purpose within the development cycle, optimizing the workflow and facilitating an agile and coordinated distribution process.
- Testing Execution
Our platform simplifies the quality assurance process, allowing the QA team to easily download the app versions they need to test. This not only speeds up the testing process but also enables the team to identify and report errors more effectively.
With Applivery, every build created in Bitrise is automatically linked, allowing the QA team to quickly download and test the necessary versions. This streamlines quality management and facilitates error documentation and tracking in Jira, making the testing process faster and more efficient.
- Version History
Applivery helps maintain a historical record of app versions. Each time a release or hotfix branch is merged into master, a version tag is created, allowing developers to easily access past versions. This historical tracking is essential in an agile development environment where changes are frequent, and the need to revert to previous versions can arise at any moment.
- Integration with Development Tools
Applivery’s integration with other tools used in development, such as Bitrise and Sonar Cloud, allows builds to be automatically generated and distributed without complications. This integration not only improves code quality but also optimizes the workflow, enabling the team to focus more on development and less on distribution logistics. Additionally, using Gitlab and Bitbucket for version control ensures that every code change is properly documented and controlled.
- Controlled Access
Applivery allows precise control over who can access different versions of the app. This feature is essential for maintaining security and confidentiality, especially in a large-scale project like McDonald’s.
- Improved Productivity
By simplifying the distribution and testing process, Applivery has significantly contributed to improving the team’s productivity. The ability to quickly access necessary versions and the automation of builds allows developers and testers to focus on what truly matters: creating a high-quality app that meets user needs.
“The integration of Applivery into our workflow has led to improved productivity, thanks to its integration with the different platforms we work with, and improved release distribution processes, making it easy for all stakeholders to access these distributions in a simple and sequenced manner for all the build variants we have available.”
Alberto Carlos Sáez Vela
Android Chapter Lead for McDonald´s App
Conclusion
Our platform has proven to be indispensable, allowing the development team to focus on creating an innovative and effective mobile solution for McDonald’s. As the app continues to evolve, Applivery not only facilitates the implementation of new features and improvements but also enables the management of different versions and agile adjustments, which is essential to delivering an exceptional user experience.
