Kudler Fine Foods Case

Kudler Fine Foods is a three-store gourmet specialty food retailing chain in the San Diego Metropolitan area of Southern California (Kudler Simulation 2012). The company is currently exploring the possibility of expanding it business and catering capabilities throughout the area, and needs to develop a marketing strategy to facilitate this expansion. This is accomplished with sound market research that includes the need to focus on its customers needs while using its competitive intelligence and strengths to remain a leader in the industry.

Market research will play an important role in deciding a course of action and the manner in which expansion will take place. The objective of Kudler Fine Foods is to deliver superior value and service to its customers while continuing to expand, and turn a profit in the process. An effective marketing mix will show the best practices for Kudler to follow to ensure product, price place, and promotion are addressed.

Marketing is an essential tool for any business and is the process of creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers based on needs and wants. This process should be accomplished by building consumer relationships in a manner that benefits the organization, the stakeholders, and society.

Marketing Research

Market research is the process gathering and analyzing data and information about clients, customers, competitors, and the market. This includes identifying and defining marketing opportunities and problems. The uses of the research include; helping to create long-term business plans, introducing new products or services, improvement of existing products and services, and expansion into new markets, either local or global. Market research assists managers in making decisions that lead to change in marketing and provides a clearer picture of what an organization must do to accomplish its marketing goals.

Kudler Foods must decide what direction to go into maximize its objectives during market research. There are three methods of conducting research, each consisting of different objectives (Internet Center for MBA 2010):

* Exploratory research - This type of research is conducted for problems that are not clearly defined and assists in determining research design, data collection, and what exactly to research. The value of this research includes eliminating impractical ideas, and gaining insight. This type of research often relies on secondary research methods of examining existing data or conducting informal talks with customers, clients, competitors, or employees. Although this type of qualitative research can tell the researcher the 'why', 'how', and 'when', it shows very little of the 'how many', or 'how often' aspect (Internet Center for MBA 2010).

* Descriptive research - This type of research is based on statistical facts, is accurate, is often systematic and involves trying to find the frequency that something occurs, or the extent of a relationship between factors. This research tends to describe users of the product, or the proportion of a population that uses the product, and or can be a tool to predict future demand of the product, and provides the answers to the 'why', 'who', 'how', and 'when', but does not disclose causality (Internet Center for MBA 2010).

* Casual research - This type of research is used to determine the cause and effect relationship between existing variables. It is often conducted through experimentation either in a lab or in the field (Internet Center for MBA 2010).

Competitive Intelligence

According to Arik Johnson (2000), competitive intelligence can be defined as "...the coordinated and purposeful monitoring of your competitors...within a specific marketplace." The collection, interpretation, and distribution of information for strategic purposes is the key element of competitive intelligence. This process is accomplished by constantly monitoring the external environment for information that would assist