McDonald's fate to be decided May 4?

The future of McDonald’s (MCD) may be determined in two weeks.

That’s because new CEO Steve Easterbrook says the world’s biggest fast-food chain is working on its turnaround plan and will announce details on May 4^th.

McDonald’s needs it. Easterbrook’s announcement comes as the company reports yet another decline in global sales-- its sixth-straight quarterly drop-- which hit all regions. In the U.S., the first-quarter slide was even worse than analysts expected, falling 2.6%.

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Yahoo Finance Columnist Rick Newman says Easterbrook has his work cut out for him.

“They’re on it, but there are a lot of problems,” he notes. “McDonald’s is a huge company, a huge supply chain spread everywhere and it’s kind of getting nibbled on the margins by all these upscale burger chains, organic places, locally-sourced food.”

Plus, Newman feels those kinds of competitors have a better handle on their own business plans than McDonald’s does.

“You know what Chipotle (CMG) is,” he points out. “They want to sell fresh and let you have a good experience. What is McDonald's?  It is having a hard time proving it can do these things as sort of a factory-food operation from the 1960’s and 70’s. It’s just having a hard time changing its image and actual operating procedures.”

But in order to take on that competition, Newman believes McDonald’s has to face some harsh realities.

“McDonald’s is still trying to cater to the budget-minded diner,” he explains. “And making these changes-- whether it’s going to organic chicken or getting antibiotics out of the food chain and all these things-- these all add costs and it’s hard to put all that in a dollar menu.”

Already, Easterbrook has initiated a range of new ideas, trying out breakfast all day, a sirloin burger and even table service. But Newman is dubious about these sort of scattershot moves.

“It looks like they are trying to figure out who they want to be by sampling the market,” he says. “Great companies and great brands, it has to happen the other way around. You have to know who you are and execute in a way that makes that clear to your customers.”

Newman believes McDonald’s has to find that direction…and then execute.

“It needs to figure out who does it want to be, what kind of burger chain does it want to be for the next 10, 15, 20 years,” he adds. “Then everything they roll out in the stores need to follow from that vision.”

And Newman thinks he knows what Easterbrook has to do.

“He has to somehow make McDonald’s cool without raising prices,” Newman argues. “That is the real challenge.”