Kudler Fine Foods Information System Processes

Kathy Kudler had a dream to have her own gourmet store after seeing the lack of in her surrounding areas. In 1988 Kathy decided to make her vision true and opened Kudler Fine Food's gourmet store. Her visions continued and developed over the years from experience of knowledge and watching business growth for her market class. Kathy has expanded her business times three and is looking to expand and branch out to Napa Valley, California, to supply her expertise for others to enjoy. Let us take a look at Kathy's visionary quest and the possibilities that play a large part of her current businesses and her potential future endeavors. Good opening.

Kudler Fine Food's have a locations in La Jolla, Del Mar, and Encinitas California. The La Jolla and Encinitas locations are very successful although the Del Mar location is not doing as well. (Kudler) The current information system for Kudler Fine Food's needs improvement and the following recommendations will allow a more successful business operation. There is no specific information system intact. Currently the accounting data is processed by the NCR RealPOS 30 terminals system but this system is past it life cycle, the latest system by NCR is the NCR RealPOS 80XRT (NCR) but lacks the needed information system capabilities. Kathy does not have a purchasing department, all purchasing is conducted manually by Kathy. Customer based statistics are in the form of surveys and then calculated for future purposes. Their website is a vital source of their success. Kathy would like to increase their e-commerce position, improve their finance and accounting operations, and upgrade their information system to integrate technology to aid the increase of profits, sales, communications, inventory, and workload. [Ideas are effectively presented.]

The following is the current hardware configurations for the Kudler Fine Food's network for each location.

• The La Jolla location runs Novell 4.11 Server for POS with multiple POS PII Windows 9x systems with a bubble jet printer and an external CD burner.

• Del Mar runs the same systems but additionally has a PII Windows NT Server IIS4 with Winfax Pro with built-in modem and CD reader and a PII 64mg ram Windows 9x with Office 97.

• The Encinitas location runs the same Novell 4.11 Server for POS with the same multiple POS PII Windows 9x systems along with a 56k external modem.

Each location is managed independently and the Finance and Accounting is sent to the main location and entered into a database using Microsoft Access and Database software. (Microsoft) [Good use of sources.]

The information system lacks the proper channel integration such as system collaboration, inventory control, CRM (Customer Relations Management), an updated POS system such as SAP POS for retail (SAP), SAP Business All In One (SAP).