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Since 1998, Kudler Fine Food (KFF) has established itself as one of the premier upscale epicurean stores in the greater San Diego area. Kathy Kudler, founder and president of KFF, established the first store in 1998 and launched two more within the next 5 years. KFF has a top-level team of directors and managers who are committed to the ongoing success and growth of the organization. This paper will dentify the primary functions of management and KFF personnel who satisfy these functions, explore the role of information technology within the organization, and analyze KFF’s market using Porter’s Competitive Forces.
Primary Functions of Management
Planning and Strategizing
One key function of management involves identifying organizational goals and developing a plan necessary to achieve these goals. This planning and strategizing requires a realistic assessment of the organization, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks (Gomez, p5.).
Kudler Fine Foods is a store unlike any in the grocery industry. Kudler Fine Foods represents a store that could possibly spark a new era within the grocery world. The owner of Kudler Fine Foods, Kathy Kudler, has watched her dream of owning and operating a grocery store that specializes in fine quality food grow within a short period of time. The success of Kudler Fine Foods can be attributed to the innovative ideas, effective leadership, and organizational structure. The overall mission of Kudler Fine Food's "is to provide our customers the finest in selected foodstuffs, wines, and related needs in an unparallel consumer environment. Our selections coupled with our experienced, helpful and knowledgeable staff, merge to offer each customer a delightful and pleasing shopping outing" (Apollo Group, 2003). Kudler has managed to maintain its mission statement by providing its customers with the best and as a result the company has flourished. "Kathy considers one of her key responsibilities to be that of identification of new gourmet items that can be offered in her stores (Apollo Group, 2003)." Therefore, Kathy is considering plans to contract with local growers of organic produce to yet obtain the best in quality products for her consumers and take her business to the next step. If Kathy makes the decision to contract with local growers then changes could be introduced into the company's overall structural organization. Each aspect of Kudler Fine Food's organizational structure from basic business process to the supply chain and quality control process will be affected by the formation of a contractual relationship with local organic growers.
Founded in 1986, Pret A Manger is a fast food chain, which produces freshly prepared, natural food with over 250 stores throughout the United Kingdom, France, Hong-Kong and the United States. Unlike most fast-food chains, Pret is a private company; they do not face the same pressure to grow as a public company does. However there are many factors that affect Pret A Manger’s marketplace such as economy, competition, technology, political environment, and the standard of living. This report evaluates major internal and external factors affecting Pret A Manger using various analytical techniques.
Kudler Fine Foods was started by a women, owner Kathy Kudler, who had a passion for cooking and a love for shopping for unique and creative culinary options. Kudler’s entire business plan focuses on the consumer, their needs and their wants, as well as what will provide them with the best customer service available in the San Diego, Metropolitan area. Kudler is constantly receiving new products, offers catering services and online options for shopping, as well as a staff that is educated about the products sold at Kudler Fine Foods locations. The trends at Kudler revolve around healthier living, and healthier eating. Since food trends come and go, Kudler must employ a knowledgeable staff that remains on top of the latest, emerging
"Kudler Fine Foods has experienced significant growth and is now focused on expanding the services, improving the efficiency of its operations and increasing the consumer purchase cycle as a means to increasing the loyalty and profitability of its consumers" (, ). This paper will justify the importance of marketing research in the development of Kudler Fine Foods marketing strategy and tactics. It will also identify the areas where additional market research is needed and analyze the importance of competitive intelligence and analysis in regards to the development of Kudler Fine Foods marketing strategy and tactics.
Demand for Panera franchising opportunities was very high, which allowed Panera to be picky about where and with whom they would do business. Panera determined where bakery-café locations could be. The franchisees bore the cost of opening new locations, and were required to obtain their ingredients from the home company. Expansion using the franchise model provided many upside benefits for Panera, while limiting the downside r...
For Oliver’s Market among the five Competitive forces, pressures associated with the threat of new entrants into the market are the strongest one. Because Wal-Mart and Target had announced plans to develop regional supercenters in the Sonoma county region. They are strong candidates for entering the market, because they possess the res...
The first function of management is planning. "Planning is systematically making decisions about the goals and activities that an individual, a group, a work unit, or overall organization will pursue." (Bateman & Snell) In my organization, planning takes up the most time. Objectives must be laid out, potential products must be examined and the timing and type of marketing must all be planned out before we provide our product to our customers. This function should be first and foremost to all individuals involved in the organization. Poor planning will result in your organizations demise.
The managers must set organizational goals aligned with the company mission. This will provide a strategy for achieving those goals. For example, planning can be seen at every level such as creating goals for sales as well as for the customer experience (Higgins, 1994).
Costco is one of the companies that have started from humble beginnings to become one of the most recognized institutions in the wholesale industry. Based on the Costco case, there are valuable lessons I have learned and the look of things is that Costco is here to stay. One of the insights I have gained from the Costco case is that organizations should understand their value chains and focus on their strengths to drive competitiveness. Another lesson that I have learned is that information technology can be used by organizations to improve their levels of competitiveness. Also, the Costco case study has enabled me to realize that the management of organizations should constantly evaluate the impacts of the strategies they employ because it is through such evaluations that the best practices can be adopted to improve the performances. Costco has applied these aspects in its different areas of operations, and they have advanced the organization since its inception days to present. From the strategic management practices, the organization has grown from strength to
The first function of management is planning. Planning is a process that managers use to identify and involve goal setting and decide the best way to achieve the goal.(Bartol 2007) Planning connect the gap between where we do, where we intend to go. It predict the possible things to happen which would not otherwise happen (MSG 2012). There are several steps to the planning process, which are determine the goals of the organisation, evaluate the current position, consider possible future conditions, identify possible alternative actions and choose the best. Planning is the criteria thinking through goals and making decision to achieve the goal of the organisation’s objective, which requires a systematic way. Also objectives focus the managers how to achieve the final result as managers have to predict anything will happen, avoid the problem and fight back to competitors. An example of planning, which is the President Canon Inc Tsuneji Uchida and lead Canon Company become the no.1 in the global business (Canon.Inc 2011). Tsuneji Uchida has to understand what is the company objective and goal. First, make decision to protect the position and the aim of canon, improve the operation more diversity. Second, he creates the new design of camera and new technology, he plan to do these things to maximise profit.
To help staff understand the complexities of the early phase of organizational development. The manager must provide a clear understanding of the purpose of the organization to the employees. Emphasizing the importance of recognizing the direction the company is going and how its methods of working can be improved. Plus, explaining the identification of general objectives would lead to the clarification of responsibilities and purpose at each level of the organization. When a manager discusses these issues with his team, he is encouraging ownership by the employees. (Moore, 2004)
There are four different functions of management. In this paper, I will define these functions; planning, organizing, leading and controlling. I will also explain how each of these functions relates to my own organization. Bateman and Snell (2004) define management as the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals. By utilizing the four different functions of management companies can work with their employees and other resources to reach the organizations goals.
Management role is to provide powerful leadership and define goals and constantly ensure employees commitment to the organization in return the reward employees when targets reached. There is no fundamental conflict between the both sides and when the conflict occurs it presumed as abnormal behavior or an outcome of poor
Burger King’s core competency is fast food restaurant franchises specializing in made to order, flame-broiled hamburger sandwiches, particularly the “Whopper”. Using the strategy of industrial organization to capture market share Burger King offers a similar product (hamburgers) in a different way (flame-broiled). This strategy of product differentiation is part of the firm conduct category that Burger King uses to set itself apart from its competitors. In order to compete with its fast food competitors Burger King accentuates its core competencies in its marketing and product strategies, thereby leveraging market share.
The four functions of management include: planning, management, leading and controlling. Internal factors impacted the PLOC in many different ways. Everything internal and external for this company deals with planning, organizing, leading and controlling, as it is the foundation for any management team.