Kudler

Kudler Fine Foods

Introduction

Kudler Fine Foods in La Jolla, CA was created and founded by former DOD contractor, Kathy Kudler who had grown stressed and exhausted by her career as a government contractor. She often would find relief in gourmet cooking. Its was during one of these cooking moments that she realized her surrounding neighborhood was missing both quality products and a centralized source for gourmet food. With that in mind, she saw an opportunity for a gourmet fine food store and thus created, Kudler Fine Foods. Within two years she has expanded to three stores. Her company is profitable, stable and successful.

Organization Structure

Kathy Kudler is the owner and President of Kudler Fine Foods, a gourmet food store committed to providing its customers with the finest selection of foods and wines so that their culinary visions can be realized. Her primary responsibilities have been to secure financing for the company, invest in a consulting service to organize her retail systems, secure legal counsel, create the structure for the organization, lead marketing and expansion efforts, and finally to be the key decision maker for the corporation.

Human Resources is headed by Heidi Wagner. Her primary responsibilities are to coordinate administrative and human resource activities, such as employment, compensation, labor relations, benefits, training and employee services. she reports directly to the president.

Director of Finance and Accounting is headed by Harvey Stephens who plans and directs the finance and accounting responsibilities. He develops and implements goals, policies, priorities and procedures relating to financial management, budget, accounting and payroll. He reports directly to the president.

Director of Store Operations is headed by Yvonne Reynolds who manages the daily operations of the three stores. Her responsibilities include conducting inventory, purchasing and the logistics of the supply chain. Yvonne is also responsible for store safety, facility maintenance, security, and compliance with state and federal regulations. She supervises the manager of purchasing and the inventory manager. Serves as a consultant to management on operational matters for store operations. Reports directly to the president.

Store Manager is responsible for selling the gourmet foods by performing the following duties personally or through subordinates supervisors. They supervise assistant store managers, department managers, clerks, baggers and cashiers. Reports directly to the president.

Kudler Fine Foods and the Intranet

Kudler Fine Foods relies heavily on the company intranet site for the dissemination of information. Corporate executives utilize email functions to coordinate company policies, store operations, corporate goals, and track the status of the financial health of the company, corporate philosophy, and overall activity of running a business. The site is used by Human Resources to inform employee's about benefits, holidays, pay, and organization structure, employee code of conduct, health insurance plans, employee recognition and pay for performance incentives. The store Operations Manager utilizes the intranet to communicate with store managers, coordinate activities between the three stores, conduct inventory control, regulatory compliance and safety incentives. The overall cost benefit of utilizing an intranet service for company matters results in significant savings, and allows for efficiency and timely communication. (Menderson, 2005).

Porters' Five Components

The key to running Kudler Fine Foods successfully is having an understanding of the critical components of power and competition in the food industry. Porter argues that the intensity of competition is rooted in its underlying economic structure and goes well beyond the behavior of current competitors. The state of competition depends on five basic competitive forces. These factors affect the elasticity of the demand curve, though some affect the long run vs. the short run. That is, potential entrants affect the long run demand curve in that they may change the industry structure from being more like an oligopoly versus perfect competition.

Porter's five components:

Threat of new entrants

Bargaining power of buyers

Threat of substitute products of services

Bargaining power of suppliers

Rivalry among existing firms (Locke, 2004)

Competitive Rivalry

If entry to an industry is easy, then competitive rivalry is likely to be high. If it is easy for customers to move to substitute products, then again, rivalry will be high. Generally competitive rivalry will be high if:

There is little differentiation between the products sold between two customers.

Competitors are approximately the same size as each other.

It is costly to leave the industry, hence they fight just to stay in.

Situation Analysis:

Kudler gourmet food has carved out a niche in the grocery market industry, filling a void left by large supermarkets that haven't paid attention to the needs of fine food cooks and connoisseurs.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Suppliers are essential for the success of an organization. Raw materials are needed to complete the finished product. Suppliers do have power, a power that comes from:

If they are the only supplier or one of few suppliers who supply that particular material.

If it is costly for the organization to move from one supplier to another.

Situation Analysis:

Kudler customers expect the best and are willing to pay for it. There are substitutes for many of the products, but with Kudlers, having the operations centered on providing the best and finest ingredients for cooking, suppliers have more bargaining power for their products due to scarcity in comparison to other fine foods.

Bargaining Power of Customers

Buyers

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