Issues at Kudler Fine Foods
Issues and problems exist in every workplace. According to DifferenceBetween.net, on a corporate level, “(an issue is something that can be handled behind closed doors, impacting no one but the people of highest authority in the situation)” (Difference Between Issue and Problem, para. 4). On the other hand, a problem “(involves information that must be released, because there will be cause to involve employees, or citizens, in the solution to the problem)” (Difference Between Issue and Problem, para. 4). It is imperative to understand the difference between the two because issues need to be identified and resolved before they develop into problems.
Two issues at Kudler Fine Foods stand out to me the most. First, Kathy, the owner, tries to take on too much responsibility at the stores. She is in charge of inventory, hiring, firing, financials, marketing, etc. Not only is it very difficult for her to keep up with everything in each of her three stores, she is putting herself in the position to be exhausted, and even worse, there is the possibility of getting herself sick. Unfortunately, she cannot afford to fall ill because there is no one else to step up and take over. Although she pays for these “specialty” employees, she has not trained anyone for the tasks she currently handles (University of Phoenix, 2003, p. 5). She needs to have a backup or contingency plan in place because not everything always goes as planned. If the day comes that she expands outside of California, she will not be able to be everywhere on a weekly basis; her time to spend in each of the stores has already been cut short. She will not be able to have a hand in every single thing that goes on in the future. Furthermore, her slogans for each department focus on customer service, and she herself rates it the highest priority, but she does not have time to see it through because of all the other time-consuming responsibilities she has.
The second issue, which feeds off the first, is that Kathy is trying to expand too quickly. Furthermore, she is not choosing the best locations to open her stores. A great deal of research was done on opening the first location— a needs assessment, population totals, growth, and average median house price—which would explain why it is doing so well. The same cannot be said about the other 2 locations. Just two years after opening La Jolla, she opened a store in Del Mar although it was only 35 minutes away from her original store. She seems to be more concerned about her ability to move between the stores instead of focusing on where she can continue to be profitable. Furthermore, the median income for this store was only $98,000, which is a far cry from being able to afford the $2 million home median price in La Jolla. Also the population is about 40,000 less than La Jolla even though the area is supposedly “(economically strong)” (University of Phoenix, 2003, p. 5). The bottom line is that there are thousands of fewer people in Del Mar making less money, and since a specialty store is more expensive than a regular grocery store, it is no wonder that she is only able to break even. After all this, she opened a third store in Encinitas. As a result of this, she has gone to an even lower median income than Del Mar, a difference of $25,000.
Another problem with the quick expansion is that she is forced to hire so many workers in specialty areas. Because she must pay extra for these workers, her overhead costs are getting too high too quickly. Also, although she is paying these employees more, she is not using them to her advantage. Since she pays for their expertise, she needs to get them involved in regular management decisions, which is basically everything she takes care of on a daily and weekly basis.
The last issue, which may not be as large as the other two, is still worth mentioning. She is trying to stock too many specialty items to start, especially because a large amount of the food is perishable. She seems to want to be a jack of all trades rather than a master of few. This is wonderful in theory, but she needs to start paying more attention to the amount of food being donated and given to her workers each night. Of course that is a great thing to do, but she needs to remember as a businesswoman, all of that food is not creating any return for her. Twelve percent of the inventory going out the door every two or three days is big turnaround. In addition, there are so many factors out of her hands that can affect how well her store does, such as the economy, climate for growing crops, etc. The fact that she is so dependent on these outside, uncontrollable factors will make it extremely difficult to run her business in a time of crisis, for example an earthquake or drought. Furthermore, she is already looking into adding a fish counter and deli. She needs to take the time to do better research on what is coming in and going out of her store before adding anything else.
Although Kudler Fine Foods has several issues, there is nothing to show that any of them have turned into problems as of yet. This means Kathy has the opportunity and means to come up with ideas to fix them before they result in costing her the business she has worked so hard for.

References (2010). Differencebetween.net. Retrieved from http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-issue-and-problem/
University of Phoenix. (2003). Kudler's strategic plan. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, MGT521 website.