Kudler Fine Foods Hr

Kudler fine foods is a gourmet food store located in San Diego with three branches in upscale locations. Their vision statement is "Kudler Fine Foods will be the premiere gourmet grocery store for those savvy shoppers who are searching for the finest meats, produce, cheeses, and wine". As per their 2003 strategic plan they intend to continue providing fine quality foods to the local area, while expanding and opening new stores in the process. While cash flow is good, buildings are leased and not purchased and thus far, Kudler Fine Foods (KFF) has been able to operate without any outside investors. Each store consists of a bakery, meat, produce, cheese and wine section. According to the 2003 strategic plan they have a strong base of repeat customers, less competition, they are very customer oriented and provide lots of choices to the customer. Their weakness are they deal with perishable goods, they have highly skilled and paid staff and small management team .Their opportunities are they can expand outside California, add new products to the line and also provide more catering services.

Kudler fine foods has got a good website launched with all the products they offer and details about their three locations. They also ask customers to take a survey and post the upcoming events where they have mentioned about the frequent buyer program. According to their strategy plan they will start with a basic site and add e-commerce capabilities as we fully automate all of our inventory and ordering system so that we can track sales and order replacement product.

According to (Bulearca & Bulearca, 2009) data gathered has showed that Internet is the fastest-growing medium so far; and as such, it has become an inescapable reality which companies and individuals need to accept and learn how to implement/ use in an effective and careful manner so as to exploit its benefits/ opportunities and achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Increased sales and market share growth are objectives pursued by most of the contemporary businesses.

Being made the above statement and considering the present state of technical and financial structure Kudler has the recommendation would be to improve their marketing and inventory management through a robust internet/intranet upgrade.

The current website now provides the products they offer. Kudler wants to provider frequent shopper program to increase revenue. For doing this in an effective way Kudler website should provide member log on information and key chain cards. Customer can track the points and manage how they can be redeemed. Kudler database should be handling user information and details, key chain card numbers associated with each user, point information for each purchase and what will they gain for the points. Customers should be informed about the same through eletters. According to (Kasavana, 2009) part of the attraction of the web is the fact it never closes and offers nearly unlimited access for visitors around the globe (24/7/365). It can be argued that online transaction processing offers unparalleled marketing opportunities at faster transaction speeds.

Kudler wants to focus and expand their catering business as the feedback of the existing customers are good. Improved internet functionality where providing an interactive menu of the choices of food and wine they can cater with an estimated cost will bring in more customers. This can reduce the labor cost they have to pay for a chef or wine expert when a customer need help in making choices with food and wine. Also customer can save time to drive down to any of their center. They can improve their website by providing an interactive section of food and wine and pairing with the cost involved and availability of the catering service.

While Kudler focuses on their in house parties and cooking programs they need more participation to bring in more revenue. They need to spend more on external advertising to achieve this with the current website. Improved functionality of the internet should help Kudler sent new letters about events, ask members to refer friends and get additional points and there by reaching out to more customers informing them about these new programs.

Since Kudler has three stores located at different location the website should have the capability to help customers with the up to date availability of products. They deal with perishable products and mostly organic .So enabling customers to search which store has product in stock will ensure customer goes to the right store to pick up their favorite product and Kudler will not thus miss on a sale.

This brings to light Kudler's need for an enhanced inventory which is a pain point for them. Excess inventory is always a concern since it represents company monies being tied up in merchandise that is not moving or generating further income. Excesses can also lead to write-downs of the merchandise as per their intranet. So Kudler should have a shared real time inventory management system through their intranet accessible to all employees.

Kudler

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