Strategic planning is crucial at this stage and there are tools available to help any business perform the analysis needed to succeed. Kudler Fine Foods is an upscale food store specializing in foods and services that appeal to a niche market; gourmet chefs and gourmet chefs in training. The firm had good initial success with its first two stores, but its third store is suffering with lower than expected sales. The firm wishes to continue expansion and increase profitable growth. Before moving forward the company’s owner, Kathy Kudler, needs to understand her company fully and have accurate knowledge about the firm’s internal and external environment.
Ordering for three stores is difficult due to the time involved, and as the business grows to new locations, a more efficient manner to order is required. The best the solution to this problem is to use modern technology, and use an automated ordering replenishment system. One company that provides this service is Red Prairie (www.redprairie.com).This type of technology will allow Kathy to generate automated suggested orders based on sales, seasonality, stock plan, and quantities on hand. Food inventory planning will enable Kathy to have individualized ordering plans for each store. Food cost managers will generate sales forecasts to reduce the carrying costs of inventory.
Kudler should invest a significant amount of research on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of Whole Foods Market and how they can capitalize on those weaknesses. Focusing primarily on the costs of similar products to ensure that they will be able to remain competitive are indeed truly offering quality product at affordable prices. Saving money is a primary concern for most consumers and Kudler needs to invest in research tactics in this area to address that consumer
I recommend a multidomestic international corporate level strategy for Trader Joes because they will be merging with Whole Foods, and it is currently operating under this strategy. A multidomestic strategy can customize each market, decentralize control and location decision making, and is effective when large differences exist between countries. The advantages are: product differentiation, local responsiveness, minimized political risk, minimized exchange rate risk (Statistic Management,
Whole Foods knows that quality is their biggest responsibility to their customers, they realize that in order to ensure product quality they must be able to trace the quality all the way back to their sources; providing suppliers with product profiles and testing the suppliers’ ability to meet their quality goals. Whole Foods encourages decisions to be made at regional levels due to the fact that they understand the needs of local shoppers better than the other levels within the business. Trader Joe’s although doesn’t mention quality as a core value it still means something to the corporation. Trader Joe’s has their own approach to ensuring their customers product quality, 80% of products that Trader Joe’s offers are private label which is five times more than the typical grocery stores have to offer their customers this allows Trader Joe’s can focus on developing customer loyalty to their own brand. Whole Foods mission statement needs any improvement this is because the current mission statement is structured in a way that allows for their mission statement to be clear and concise.
Many consumers where highly interested in owning the technology but was not familiar with the details of how it works. Robert Stephens jumped on the opportunity to capitalize on innovation and the fact that it brings constant change and new problems. 2. What changes in the purchasing patterns of (a) all consumers and (b) women made the acquisition of Geek Squad particularly important for Best Buy? (a) Best Buy had a very high return rate so a full service, house call entity allowed for a decrease of their return rates by 25% - 35%.
American’s can’t “pinpoint any lasting way in which the stunning attacks brought Americans together, strengthened our national character, made us more willing to sacrifice or even changed the daily routine for most citizens of the United States”. The shaky economy is still present today, the United States’ GDP accounted for about 23 present of the world’s outputs. Today that has gone to about 19 present. The nation is in debt, 5.8 billion in 2001 and now over 15 trillion in 2011 which is about 100 present GDP. People wanted a memorial for 9/11 but this will cost the country more money and that fact that it will put them even more under isn’t helping either.
Impulse locations: The market changed as Foodservice operators added soft-serve yogurt to business in the early 90’s. By the late 90’s, impulse locations occupied 2/3 of the soft-serve market, which made impulse locations a very important sales segment for GMI. Since the soft-serve trade is only performance topspin for impulse locations, they are unwilling to take any risks on new product innovation. As a result, potential sales from impulse locations are limited; although, they are the main distribution segment for GMI. GMI’s marketing strategy * The Foodservice sales force serviced both Shops and Impulse locations.
Through this entity, Armco was recognized as the leading supplier of grinding media products in the United States. The carbon wire rod was not a profitable product. The labour cost of Kansas City were higher than most of their competitors; however, their plant was not efficient, because it should have accommodate five times as many as current employees. Because of this disadvantage, the managers increase the value of their products to increase the profit and sales. All salaried employees in the Works were eligible for cash incentive awards based on performance evaluation made by their immediate superior and Rob Cushman with a range 5-30% of annual salary.
When comparing these aspects from foreign countries to aspects of the United States, one side is clearly more preferable. If one is looking for a prevailing quality of life, the United States is the inferior one choice when compared to other nations. When evaluating quality of life it is difficult to clearly have set criteria to base it off of. If evaluating quality of life, wealth of the nation does not overshadow other aspects for this concept. For example, “The main reason the United States if richer is because...they work about 20% more hours per year than Europeans (newfederalist).” Based off of this study, we see that while Americans are wealthier, they are working a lot more strenuously to make this money.