Aloha products that highlight its industry in coffee specialty should be concern about the control system and the measurement system applied in the company. The company should first understand the characteristic of the coffee industry itself. First of all, the coffee trade originated from the grower to the buyer either broker or roasters are made based on a very good relationship. In short it is a trust business. The grower will sell the coffee to the individual or firm that they knew very well and vice versa.
After getting sufficient knowledge about the characteristic of coffee trading method, the company also should pay attention upon the emerging trends that the overall coffee drinker numbers are shrinking although coffee specialty drinks are still in a big favor.
The company has an autonomous purchasing unit that deals with the coffee purchasing and supplies it to the other production department in the company. The unit maintains a good relationship with the coffee brokerage and their suppliers. The unit also treats each contract made as an individual contract. The contracts are usually made long time before the delivery date.
Applying those methods the company gets both benefits and disadvantages. The company is still be able to book a rationale profit but also a lot of the department in the company are dissatisfied with the practice. The company harvested complaints from the department concerning of the gross margin computing method and also the strategy execution.
If I may suggest, first of all, the company better build a good relationship to the grower instead of the broker. The company even can do the vertical integration if they find a qualified grower to keep their supply all year long. It is because the contracts that treated individually and cost the company a lot of problem. The cost tends to be bigger that they appear. The contract with the brokerage was made long time before the