Kudler Fine Foods Case Study

Kudler Fine Foods Problem Statement
Joe Blow
MGT 521

Problem Statement
Introduction
Kudler Fine Foods has the potential to become one of the premier gourmet grocery stores in southern California. There are issues that Kudler Fine Foods has that are preventing the company from advancing to a top tier level grocery store. The issues that are plaguing Kudler Fine Foods are a lack of proper management/staff personnel, proper management techniques, and high payroll for specialty positions within the stores. This paper will address these issues and how these issues can be resolved to help Kudler Fine Foods achieve its overall goal. Lastly, we will discuss where the company may be if the suggested improvements are followed by management.
Problem Statements The first issue to be addressed is the lack of upper level management personnel and a lack of needed staff positions. This issue is of major concern to the company owner because it directly affects her in her day-to-day operations of the business. Currently Kudler Fine Foods has only one upper level management individual and that is the owner. In order to be successful and be competitive in the general economy the owner will need proper management personnel to help manage her company. By hiring a general manager, the owner could concentrate on issues for the company and the general manager could handle issues of the individual stores. There are also positions that should be created for the overall business such as an accounting position. These positions will add on to an already high payroll but these positions will make the company better organized and more efficient. Kudler Fine Foods lacks the proper upper level management positions to properly operate a company its size.
As a result the owner does a large majority of the daily operations of the company and does not use management techniques that could make the company more streamlined. This issue is one that should be addressed by all management personnel within the company. One of the main responsibilities of a manager is the delegation, and assigning of work to lower level employees. The owner of the company has taken on entirely too much of the daily operations of the individual stores. Store level issues and operations should be handled by the manager of the prospective store; if that store’s manager is not able to resolve the issue or is having a problem with the operational aspect the company then the issue should be sent up the chain to be handled by a higher level manager. The simple task of delegating responsibility will remove a significant portion of the workload off the owner and on to store personnel who can better manage the
tasks. Payroll is an important part of every company.
Kudler Fine Foods payroll is currently an issue because of the specialty positions that are required in the stores. Payroll is of extreme importance to the owner of Kudler Fine Foods. There are a few options that the company can use that would reduce the payroll significantly. The first would be to remove the store manager positions from each store and hire one general manager to operate all three stores. Each store would still have an assistant store manager to assist the general manager with running each store. The next option would be to remove the specialty positions from each store and have one of each specialty position to rotate in between the stores. To continue offering each specialty positions service in each store, store clerks in each store should be trained to handle the responsibilities of the specialty positions while there are in other stores. Each individual option could reduce the high payroll that Kudler Fine Foods is operating under, if both options are used the company’s payroll could be reduced
dramatically. Conclusion The preceding material states issues and solutions for each issue. Each of the preceding problem statements complement each other and if used in concert will put Kudler Fine Foods in a great position to become a top tier gourmet grocery store. The proposed improvements would give the company all of the tools to expand into surrounding areas and it will allow the Del Mar location to be phased out without losing a large amount of money. With the payroll cutbacks and the shifting of management responsibility the stores should become more profitable and begin to grow. As the company grows and becomes more profitable the specialty positions can be placed back in each store to provide more services for their customers. The overall outlook of Kudler Fine Foods is currently good but if management utilizes the solutions offered the company will be successful beyond their current goals.

References
McElunn, J., (2010). Problem? Solved! Profit, vol. 29 issue 2, p38-42
Small business, big problem (Dec. 2009). Economist, vol. 393 issue 8661, p14-16, 2p
Strategic Plan (2003). Kudler Fine Foods, p1-23