Unsolved Opportunities at Kudler Fine Foods
The purpose of this paper is to identify one of the problems within the Virtual

Organization of Kudler Fine Foods (KFF) and provide goals to resolve that problem. The goals

themselves will be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound (SMART).The end

state vision of the goals for approximately one year out is also presented with a proviso of

management action and implementation. The problem for KFF is that they have stopped doing

the organizational and customer oriented stategies that made them successful when the company

started. In order to accomplish this, ownership can make a commitment in the areas of needs

assessment, advertising, and customer interaction for all future markets over the next year.

Research for the first location of Kudler Fine Foods began with a needs assessment. Ms. Kudler opened her first store in 1998 in La Jolla, California. This location met the owner’s initial needs assessment. La Jolla’s population was 44,424 and growing. The average median house price is just over $2 million (University of Phoenix, 2007). Ms. Kudler chose her first location well. It has supported the other two stores opened to date. Neither the Del Mar nor Encinitas stores have similar demographics to La Jolla. The populations and the household incomes appear to be much smaller in the newer locations. This may be part of the reason that the last two stores are approximately break-even at best according to the simulation “Del Mar’s median household income in 2000 was $98,257 with a population of 4,389 and the second store was just above break-even” (University of Phoenix, 2007). Based on Kudler Fine Foods, “Encinitas’ average household income is just over $75,000 and has a population base of just over 50,000 people” (University of Phoenix, 2007). A needs assessment is an