McDonald's opens Hamburger University in Shanghai

Shanghai has got a new university with the unlikeliest of names - Hamburger University. Yes, that is right, but at this newest centre of learning students won't be learning about the art and science of making hamburgers and fries, but they will get to learn how to run businesses better.

China is McDonald's fastest-growing global market, according to Tim Fenton, the company's president for Asia, Pacific, Middle East and Africa. He said China had a $300 billion-a-year "informal eating out" market growing at a heady 10 per cent annual rate compared with 2 to 3 per cent in the US.

He added that it was because of China's strategic importance to McDonald's that the company had decided to have its new Hamburger University in Shanghai.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald, has a workforce in excess of 60,000 across more than 1,100 restaurants in mainland China after it started operations in the country 20 years back. It plans to expand to 2,000 outlets in a period of three to five years.

Since according to company policy, branches have to be headed by Hambuger U- trained managers, it shifted the Hong Kong teaching facility to Shanghai. The school was training mostly mainland Chinese.

The school, located in an unpretentious office building in an industrial park in the suburbs aims to turn out 5,000 graduates over the next five years. The university's courses can be used in certain cases to earn college credits and according to the company, graduates use such schools to pursue college degrees.

According to the school's dean Susanna Li, the school would do its best to be the Harvard for its industry.

The move comes as foreign companies in China are focusing on developing and more importantly retaining talented local managers who as young, ambitious employees tend to move on for better opportunities.

On Tuesday, the American Chamber of Commerce said the results of a survey of 202 multinational companies showed that they are changing strategies to adapt to rising costs and high employee turnover.

According to analysts companies need to offer better opportunities to retain talented employees.