Service Request SR-kf-013 Paper

Mary Olson

University of Phoenix

BSA/310

Richard Seay

October 14, 2010

Kudler Find Foods was open in 1998, and founded by Kathy Kudler. Kathy’s passion for gourmet cooking led to Kathy opening up her first gourmet store because of the lack of places to purchase quality gourmet products. The first store was open in La Jolla California, and then followed by two other locations, one in Del Mar California, and the other in Encinitas California (Kudler, 2010.) The owner Kathy Kudler does all the ordering for all three stores buying in bulk. To have products as fresh as possible, Kathy and her staff pull products if turnover is not what is expected. By Kathy placing the orders and keeping track items that are not selling allows her to control waste of perishable goods. In addition to this Kathy has specialize staff members to assist the customers with any questions or culinary needs. Each store has his or her own specialist working during regular business hours (Kudler, 2010.) In order for Kathy to start a frequent shopper program a SWOT analysis needs to be completed to identify any weakness, strengths, opportunities, or threats. Some of the strengths Kudlers have are small company, minimal competition, variety of products, good customer rapport, ideal location, owner’s work ethics, and returning customers. The weakness are majority of product are perishable, highly paid specialized staff, over worked managers, and limits on geographic locations. The opportunities are expansion, delegate workload to more experience staff, provide additional catering services, increase type of products, expand outside of the state, and possibility to be purchase. The threats are declining economy and other gourmet stores (Kudler, 2010.) The future for Kudler Fine foods are to expand statewide, along with nationally. In addition to expanding Kudler’s ultimate goal is to compete with other higher end gourmet shops. One way Kudler plans on doing this is starting a website that in the end will have e-commerce capabilities that will allow Kudler to automate ordering and inventory. This will allow Kudler to track product sales and replace product as needed. Starting a website and operating system this will assist Kudler in starting a “Frequent Shopper Program” (Kudler, 2010.) The “Frequent Shopper Program” Kudler plans on starting are to reward the customers who are loyal. The initiative behind this is too track the level of purchases of each customer at all locations and provide incentives by forming partnerships with loyalty points program. By tracking the purchases will assist in improving processes and what is offer to the customer. Along with tracking purchases Kudler will build a better relationship between the company and the customers. The frequent shopper program is not too provide discounts on product or services but to provides points that can be redeem for other products, such as gifts or food products (Kudler, 2010.) The legal and regulatory laws impacts of all parts of a business and requires a basic knowledge of any legal aspect as it relates to planning and operations. The larger companies have legal staff to handle compliance and advice, whereas, smaller companies must seek it from outside firms. It pays for companies to have staff that keep inform of any legal or regulatory changes that may impact the company’s business in order to stay in compliance. According to Fry, F. L., Stoner, C. R., & Hattwick, (2004), “Although ethics is a higher standard of behavior than the law, there is often a close relationship between the two. In a democratic society, laws represent the desires of the people.” By the law being the foundation leads businesses to do what are ethical and reflecting higher standards for people (Fry, Stoner, & Hattwick, 2004.) A key area in the frequent shopper program is the information being gathered to award customers is used in a legal and ethical matter. Along with provide better demographic and marketing data to improve Kudler’s customer shopping experiences and provide better product or services. As the use of the Internet has grown over the years, privacy is another key area that Kudler needs to be aware of the laws and protect the data being gathered. One way of doing this is putting in place procedures on how data is to be stored and access. In starting the frequent shopper program Kudler’s must develop his or her e-commerce website that meets all ethical and legal aspect in protecting the information of the customers. Unauthorized access to the customer’s information can lead to fraud and identity theft. The frequent shopper program can be an effective way of acquiring new customers and keeping current customers awarded for his or her loyalty. Kudler addressing legal and ethical concerns, along with privacy issues will ensure the customers the information being gathered is used for the tended purposes.

Reference

Fry, F. L., Stoner, C. R., & Hattwick, R. E. (2004). Business: An integrative approach (3rd ed.). Boston,

MA: McGraw Hill/Irwin.

Kudler Retrieved October 14, 2010,

https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Business/Kudler/Internet/Kudler

Port.htm