Introduction
Kudler Fine Foods is a successful gourmet food store situated in south California and was started by Kathy Kudler (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). Established in 1998, the main objective of the company was to provide its customers with top quality foodstuffs and wines in an exclusive consumer environment (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). The structure and culture of its organizational leadership has been the source of motivation and success to the company. This article will feature the Kudler strategic plan for three years. A strategic plan helps in creating public value, through helping the organization achieve fulfill its mission and meet its mandates (Alkhafaji, 2003). Alkhafaji (2003) further observes, “in order to do this the organization need to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what the company is, what it does and why it does it”. Strategic planning involves interrelated functions which include organizing participation, formulating ideas of strategic significance, organizing a coalition to adopt the ideas and effectively implementing the ideas (Alkhafaji, 2003).
Strategic plan
The objective of Kudler Fine foods is to continue growing and expanding and at the same time minimize risks in order to remain ahead of competition (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). With the aim of sustaining its revenue earnings and expansion rate, the company should embark on formulation and implementation of new marketing and risk strategies. These strategies are based on the examination of the existing internal and external strengths of the company (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). In this regard, Kudler Fine Foods should implement changes that will have long term effect concerning resource allocation and decision making. A strategic plan will help the hotel to earn itself a competitive edge in the market and also long term profitability.
The hotel should adopt the generic strategy which includes low-cost leadership as well as product differentiation, and finally focusing on specific groups of consumers. Differentiation of products and service offered by the hotel will help it to have a competitive advantage. In order to achieve the differentiation strategy, the company should introduce health meal in order to target those people who are health conscious. With the rise in obesity cases, most people are very sensitive on what they eat. Therefore, in order for the Kudler fine foods to target these people it should introduce health meal like vegetarian meal or grilled meal which will attract more customers. Cost leader ship will also help the company to have a competitive advantage (Alkhafaji, 2003). This can be achieving by minimizing the operation cost as much as possible and by also increasing its operations in order to achieve economies of scale. Kudler fine foods should also target a niche market to sell its products and services. For example the hotel can target the kids segment by kid’s meal. This will help to satisfy the needs of the parents and their kids. In order to target the kids, the restaurant should develop a new kid’s pak which should consist of a toy in order to encourage the kid’s physical activities. Low fat foot foods should be developed for the kids and also juice which is low in fat to replace cookie and thus make it easy for the kids to have delicious and balanced food.
Kudler Fine Foods faces competition threats and therefore it has to work hard to overcome them (Alkhafaji, 2003). The use of Porter’s forces model will assist in the analysis of the hotels competitiveness. It also helps in the strategic planning, subsequently leading to a competitive edge in the market (Alkhafaji, 2003). According to porter’s model, there exist five competitive forces which include competition among established competitors, new competitors, substitutes, suppliers and customers. In order to overcome these forces, the company should device strategies to help it gain a competitive advantage (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). Kudler fine foods should improve the quality and services they offer in order to make their meals the best compared to those of the competitors (Alkhafaji, 2003). This can be achieved by offering their meals at competitive prices, guarantee the customers’ satisfaction and making sure they always have what the customers want. The company should also reinforce a good working relationship with their suppliers to boost their trade relationship. Through such relationship, Kutker Foods is in a position to have a good bargain in terms of product quality, variety, and fair price. Customers should be provided with services which are better than those of the competitors.
In order to achieve a competitive advantage, Kudler fine foods should develop a promotion campaign (Alkhafaji, 2003). Advertising will help in creating brand recognition by delivering key messages with control and predictable frequency. In order for the hotel to target the kids properly it should use cartoon advertising. The placement of cartoon advertisements in cartoon program will help the children to pay attention to the services and products that the hotel will be advertising (Alkhafaji, 2003).
Kudler fine food should also use internet marketing to advertise its services and products online. Internet marketing is powerful because of the limitless geographic range that it can penetrate. Almost every person is conversant with internet and as such when the company uses it as an advertisement media many people will be targeted (Alkhafaji, 2003). The restaurant can post the types of the meals it offers and other services for the people to see. Internet marketing will save time for the company because one does not need to travel but instead it involves posting an advert online and very many people will access it.
Sales promotion is also a promotional technique that the restaurant should use to reposition itself (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). This consists of activities or materials that will be used by induce the customers. The restaurant can use free samples or coupons to attract more customers to use their services and buy the products. This method will help the company to attract more customers, boost sales to the current customers and neutralize competitive promotional efforts.
The hotel should use public relation promotion strategy to create awareness of its products and services (Alkhafaji, 2003). Public relation will focus on enhancing the reputation of the total organization by making people aware of the restaurants products and services, brand or activities. It will also help in creating the restaurants images such as that of innovativeness. The company can sponsor social and sport events in order to create a good image and reputation. This will help create customer loyalty and also attract more customers to use the restaurants products and services.
Most companies formulate plans in so that they may help them in achieving their objectives and living by their own mission statements (Alkhafaji, 2003). It may involve the change of tactics of approach, objectives and organizational handling of customers and sometimes its employees. It has however be realized that some organizations have difficulty in gauging how far they have achieved from what they had stipulated in their implementation plans. This is partly contributed by the fact that the management may not involve all its employees in the implementation process (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). Others may make strategies without studying the target market or consumers because some of the implementations they choose may suffer setbacks from the consumers. Moreover, some companies do not have set standards that they aim to attain and therefore hard to determine the targets the achievements (Alkhafaji, 2003).
The aim of risk management plans for any organization is to cushion it from suffering further loss or unhealthy competition from its rivals (Alkhafaji, 2003). Moreover, its helps it in commanding a good consumer base and at the same time minimizing cost while maximizing revenue earnings. In addition, the company should be able to provide the best quality goods and capture the confidence of its customers (Apollo Group, Inc., 2003). When a company is not able to achieve the above mentioned objectives, it will be a clear indication that their strategic plans have failed. Additionally, if the relationship amongst employees and between the customers and the company deteriorates, it may also show a failure of the risk management plans.
Conclusion
Kudler Fine Foods or any other company can grow fast through successful implementation of the strategies that greatly focus on enhancing its strengths and minimizing its weaknesses (Alkhafaji, 2003). Minimization of costs of any inputs and and satisfaction of customers needs are the major ways of wooing customers. When this is coupled with production of unique goods, a company can be sure of establishing a good consumer base and sustenance of their confidence thus ensuring that it has a constant market for its goods.
Reference list
Alkhafaji, A. F. (2003). Strategic management: formulation, implementation, and control in a dynamic environment. New York. Routledge Publishers.
Apollo Group, Inc. (2003). Kudler Fine Foods: Operations: Supply Chain Overview. Web.