Kudler Fine Foods

Kudler Fine Foods

Introduction

Kudler fine foods store is located in the metropolitan area of San Diego. It is a local but upscale store that deals with specialty food products. The products which are available at the store include products like bakery and also pastry foods, together with seafood, meats, selected dairy products, cheese and fresh produce. The food store has a mission stating that they have to offer the best of experience to their customers and also quality products. Their mission is efficiently carried out by their experienced and hardworking team of staff. In this paper, I shall discuss the significance of marketing strategy and the tactics employed, together with identifying areas where some additional market research is essential. To add on this, I shall analyze the impact of intelligence directed towards a competitive approach, focusing on developmental approach of Kudler Fine Food’s marketing tactics and research.

The Significance of Marketing Research

Marketing research is a form of study in business which puts together records and uses them to analyze essential data concerning competitors and consumers available in the marketing environment. An effective market research is important in creating a business plan, streamlining of existing products and services, introduction of a new commodity or a service in the market and also for a business to expand their marketing activities. Many companies and business adopt the use of the business research in determining which part of the target population will eventually buy their products. It specifically target different groups of individuals in regard to their age, income level, location and gender. While conducting the market research, the researchers are able to identify the different characteristics of the target. This is essential for the company since it becomes aware of the different strategies to employ while carrying out their expansion.

This activity should not be an exception concerning the effective operation of Kudler Fine Foods. It should be able to carry out an effective market research that will make the company to be able to effectively compete in the marketing environment. Basing on the experience of Kathy Kudler, as a vice president for a large contractor in defense, she is well knowledgeable of the effects of market research. It is important to note that the food store is in the stage of expanding their offered services (University of Phoenix, 2012).  It is noticeable that Kudler Fine Food’s has in the recent period experienced massive growth and expansion, since in 1998 when it opened their first store. It moved forth and opened two more stores in a period of two to three years only. Kudler Fine Foods need to open to expand their business outreach, therefore enhancing the consumer purchasing cycle. It would also like to improve on the efficiency in which it provides its services.

The main objective that prompts the store to improve on their service delivery is the sole purpose to have a massive loyalty of their customers and also to increase on the profitability index recorded by each individual store. Kudler Fine Food has moved a step towards making sure that it is able to increase their customer loyalty in the period of the next twelve months. Steps that the food store has taken include adding on their high margin services, providing some of the best highly efficient and moving a step towards understanding the behavior of their customers in their purchasing activities. This will only be made possible by the use of their suppliers, who are tasked to supply their beverages and food products, and also purchasing larger quantities of raw materials which have bigger discounts. Kudler Fine Food’s success lies in building a long-term correlation between the company and their clients, therefore expanding on their consumer base. This is because the company will be able to enjoy massive profits from the frequent visits of their customers.

Tactics and Strategies

Because the business will involve selling of gourmet foods, it is important for it to realize that it would rather have the best of services and the highest quality products, compared to it having to lower their prices. Kudler Fine Foods has the responsibility to always consider this aspect in their development of tactics and strategies to be incorporated in the business. Basing on the SWOTT analysis carried out, a small management team that had a lot of responsibilities were the major challenges that the company faced. It is also evident that Del Mar location is not performing as the expected. Another challenge was the geographic location that the stores were located which were a major setback to the expansion efforts (University of Phoenix, 2011). The most important thing for Kudler Fine Foods is to develop a solution to the setbacks that it is acing so as to be able to meet their objectives.

The company has moved forth to establish three strategies that will facilitate the realization of their goals. These strategies will be responsible for reduction of the production and operational costs but on the other hand improve on the general profitability of the food store. On the fore, it plans to improve on the revenue in the individual stores by staging parties responsible for informing people on how to prepare foods. For the company to be able to encourage more customers to participate in such parties, it will come up with a contest in which the customers are able to win tickets containing high prizes. Secondly, the food store will increase the frequency in which their customers visit the stores. It will do this by introducing a loyalty points program, where customers are able to earn points basing on the number of times they visit the stores, and the quantity of products they buy. This is a special strategy in making the company to be able to track the buying habits of their customers, therefore allow it to track particular customers. Considering the information available in databases, there is a system that Kudler Fine Foods uses to track all activities in the internal sales. It wants to improve on this system so that it is able to also track the buying trends of individual customers, together with their demographics (University of Phoenix, 2012).

Using the improved system, the area of opportunities will definitely be improved upon. The main opportunity that Kudler Fine Food’s has to seize will be the expanding the demographics in the entire California. It can be able to effectively implement their expansion motives by studying the demographics available in California. It can be able to be aware of the characteristics of each individual basing on their sex, age, family income and place of residence. In the event that certain individuals will possess the same characteristics, they will be grouped into one single group, therefore determining the strategic place where the store could be placed.

 Competitive Intelligence and Analysis

Information is an essential thing in marketing activities. This will be both from internal and external sources. Kudler Fine Food’s stores are surrounded by other traditional outlets of supermarkets like Ralphs, Albertsons and Vons (University of Phoenix, 2012). Most of the stores sell products similar to the ones sold by Kudler Fine Foods. They have also moved to advertising the introduction of free range meat and organic foods. Despite all this, Kudler Fine Foods has the advantage to attract more focused group of customers, since people are looking for some added quality, but not just organic food. These groups of customers seek for better services, quality food and the utensils of the highest reputation, which can be able to create gourmet food. 

To add on this Kudler Fine Foods is not up to competing with the traditional supermarkets. A lot of health food stores have been established close to their store outlets but Kudler Fine Foods has given much of their emphasis organic foods nature. Considering the diversity of the people in California, many stores have even featured in international foods. Such include Aria International Market, Market & Grill, Balboa International Market and Indian International Food. All this stores have their focus on provision of international but have not considered gourmet experience. many customers who frequent Kudler Fine Foods have shared their experience, that they did not get the service, expertise, ingredient and the selection provided by Kudler Fine Foods even after visiting the international food stores.

Conclusion

Kathy Kudler has made an impact in opening and running her business. For her to be able to expand on the outreach of her business, she has to put more emphasis on the elimination of weaknesses while improving on the opportunities. She should be able to realize the significance of conducting a market research. She should also move forth to establishing an effective strategy and tactic unknown to other competitors. Lastly she should be able to carry out the demographics in the setting of her business. If all these measures are not put in place, the business might face stiff competition from her competitors.

Reference

University of Phoenix, (2012) Kudler Virtual Organization [Multimedia] Available at <University of Phoenix, MKT421 website> [accessed on June 9, 2012]