Words: 966
Overview of Management Assignment Kudler Fine Foods is a specialty food store located in the San Diego metropolitan area. The company has three locations: La Jolla, Del Mar and Encinitas. Each store has approximately 16,000 s. f. of retail space located in a fashionable shopping center. The stores are stocked with domestic and imported foodstuffs and divided into five departments: Fresh Bakery and Pastries, Fresh Produce, Fresh Meat & Seafood, Condiments and Packaged Foods, Cheese’s and Specialty Dairy Products.
Kathy Kudler – the founder – wanted to create one store that would stock a wide selection of the freshest ingredients as well as all of the tools a gourmet cook could ever want. Kathy was certain that combining the convenience of one-stop shopping with reasonable prices would be a recipe for success.
The management process in a business includes four primary functions: a) Planning and Strategizing, planning is the function that assesses the management environment to set future objectives and map out activities necessary to achieve those objectives and strategizing involves the ability to focus on key objectives without getting mired in details, to sense and understand what is happening inside and outside the company, and to respond in an appropriate and timely fashion (Gomez-Mejia, & Balkin, 2002).
The responsible of this function at Kudler Fine Foods is The President, Kathy Kudler. b) Organizing, involves specifying how the firm’s human, financial, physical, informational, and technical resources are arranged and coordinated to perform tasks to achieve desired goals. Organizing activities include defining roles for all players, delegating tasks, marshalling and allocating resources, clarifying procedures, and determining priorities (Gomez-Mejia, & Balkin, 2002). The responsible parties of this function at Kudler Fine Foods are: a??
The Store Managers: Kent Vesper (La Jolla), Laurie Priest (Del Mar) and Juanita Lopez (Encinitas). a?? The Director of Finance & Accounting, Harvey Stephens. a?? The Director of Store Operations, Yvonne Reynolds. a?? The Director of Administration and Human Resources, Brenda Wagner. c) Leading, is energize people to contribute their best individually and in cooperation with other people. This involves clearly communicating organizational goals and their importance, inspiring and motivating mployees, providing an example for others to follow, guiding people, and creating conditions that encourage people from diverse backgrounds to work well together to achieve maximum success (Gomez-Mejia, & Balkin, 2002). The responsible parties of this function at Kudler Fine Foods are The President and the Store Managers. d) Controlling consists of measuring performance, comparing it to objectives, implementing necessary changes, and monitoring progress. Many of these issues involve feedback or identifying potential problems and taking corrective action.
Organizations may use specific approaches to detect and correct significant variations or discrepancies in the results of planned activities success (Gomez-Mejia, & Balkin, 2002). The responsible parties of this function at Kudler Fine Foods are the Directors, Store Managers and Department Managers. Kudler Fine Foods utilizes technology and the Internet during daily operations; this is a competitive advantage for the company because they have access to accurate and reliable data, which feeds the accounting systems.
The President and Directors of Financing, Store Operations, Administration and Human Resources use this information to plan, organize tasks and make better decisions. Technology has improved operations management, including productivity, efficiency, and customer responsiveness (Gomez-Mejia, & Balkin, 2002). Some examples of technology and Internet use are: a?? The bank accounts are accessed via online banking provided by the financial institutions. a??
The company uses Quick Books as the accounting software and has outsourced payroll processing to Intuit, all employees are paid via direct deposit. a?? Each transaction at the cash register is transmitted to the General Ledger, Electronic Payment Clearing House that results in the automatic submission of the credit card transactions to the applicable financial institutions, and Purchasing Function, which automatically prepares invoices for merchandise based on business rules (quantity of inventory on hand, quantity discount purchases, number of days since the last order). ?? Use of databases containing customer, inventory, purchase orders, stores, and suppliers information. a?? Uses a biometric time system that identifies the employee and records the time worked. If we want to analyze competitiveness in a company, one of the most well known frameworks is Porter’s force model, which has been used to develop strategies for companies to increase their competitive edge. The model recognizes five major forces that could endanger a company’s position in a given industry.
Details of the model differ from one industry to another, but the general structure is universal. [pic] The five major forces can be generalized as follows. 1. The threat of entry of new competitors a?? Internet vendors a?? Brand identity a?? Foreign general merchandisers or discounters a?? Government policy 2. The bargaining power of suppliers a?? U. S. and foreign manufacturers a?? Presence of substitute inputs. a?? Cost of inputs relative to selling price of the product. a?? Importance of volume to supplier. 3. The bargaining power of customers (buyers) ?? Organic and Non-organic products variety that will meet any budget. a?? Consumers in metropolitan areas in California. a?? Buyer information availability. a?? Frequent buyer points program. a?? Corporate buyers. a?? Availability of substitute products. 4. The threat of substitute products or services a?? Mail Order (catalog) a?? Home shopping network (TV) a?? Internet orders a?? Purchasing clubs a?? Buyer propensity to substitute] a?? Relative price performance of substitutes a?? Perceived level of product differentiation 5.
The rivalry among existing firms in the industry a?? Industry growth a?? Fixed costs/value added a?? Brand identity a?? Number and diversity of competitors a?? Product differences a?? Level of advertising expense (919). References Gomez-Mejia, L. , & Balkin, D. (2002). Management and Its Evolution (8th ed. ). New York: McGrawa? ‘Hill. Turban, E. , Rainer, K. , & Potter, R. (2003). Introduction to Information Technology (8th ed. ). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. . www. Wikipedia. org ———————– Figure 1: Porters Five Forces