Problem Statement for Kudler Fine Foods Kudler Fine Foods, a gourmet food grocery store locted in California is expereincing expansion within the company. Although Kudler Fine Foods has had success within the company, there are several issues that need be addressed before they become problems that could affect the companies future growth. This paper is inteded to present several problem statements covering who the problem will affect, what boundaries are involved concerning the present problems, when these issues have surfaced and what steps have to occur to fix these issues, where these issues are present, and why these problems need to be addressed. The first issue present at Kudler Fine Foods involves the inabillity to improve customer interaction due to lack of time available. Having to spend so much time visiting each location, determining what new items need be ordered to ensure proper stock of inventory is availble, and ordering the needed material has become quite time consuming. Because of this, time needed to spend interacting with customers has been drastically limited. To address this issue, a new inventory program will be developed. This will give managers of the stores the ability to keep records of what inventory needs to be ordered throughout the week. The new system will maintain records of what products are being sold, as they are being sold. By having this system implemented, needed inventory will be recorded at time of purchase, and a report will be printed at the end of each week. Using this report, merchandise can be ordered in a timely manner. This will allow more time to be spent interacting with customers, and building relationships with the people who purchase these products. Profit loss from eliminating persihable goods has also become a problem at Kudler Fine Foods. Using this new form inventory calculation system will assist in cutting down on ordering products that will not sale fast enough in stores. Through using this new inventory system, only items that sale at a faster rate will be ordered in mass quantity. Products that take longer to sale will still be available, but fewer will be in stock cutting down on the amount of products that go out of date. Ultimately this will lead to increase in profits and a decrease in expenses involved with ordering more merchandise. Another issue that has become present at Kudler Fine Foods is the high payroll limiting store profits. Having to hire specialized people to assist with informing customers of the variations in avaialble wine, meats, cheese, and other products sold in the stores is a costly issue. This causes the employees of the store to recieve less compensation for their work due to having to pay other people with more knowledge of certain products. Although daily employees are being paid at lower rate, adding in the cost for contracting these specialist has caused payroll to become a major expense to the company. In order to address this situation, a new training program will be implemented. This program will teach hourly employees the information held by the specialist hired. In doing so, the need for bringing in specialist to assist with company sales will diminsh. Without having to account for the expenses involved with using these specialist, employees can recieve more compensation for thier work. Although pay will increase for hourly workers, the amount will be dramatically less than that needed for hiring specialist. This will help with reducing the companies high payroll while maintaining employee satisfaction. Placing strenusous amounts of responsibilties on store managers is another problem present at Kudler Fine Foods. Implementing this new form of training for store associates will relieve management members of some of these resposiblities. By properly teaching employees the information needed to present customers about store products, managers can focus more on the task required to run and maintain a successful business. Limited expansion has also become an issue that needs to be addressed in order for Kudler Fine Foods to maintain successful life. Although profits have been outstanding with the original store, the expansion store in barely breaking even. This lack of profit may have several influencing factors. The second store, although located in a different community is still within driveable distance from the first store. This may be leading to the smaller customer base at the second store because many of the available customers are still using the first store as their main grocery store. Kudler Fine Foods should address this problem by looking to expand outside of the California area. By establishing new stores in other states, Kudler Fine Foods will be able to expand their customer base greatly. Considerable locations for these stores should be cities where average family income is highest within the given state, due to the reason people within these cities will be more eligible. to spend a little extra money on finer quality foods. In conslusion, Kudler Fine Foods is a growing company that looks to ensure long term success. In addressing the problems presented in this paper, the issues causing stalls in company growth can be eliminated. Ultimately this will lead to growth within Kudler Fine Foods, which will generate great profits for this business owner, as well as provide great compensation for the employees hired. Once these issues have been eliminated, Kudler Fine Foods can grow into a prominant business with a promising future.