Overview of Management Assignment

Overview of Management Assignment

Introduction

Chapter 1, Management Challenges from the book Management and Its Evolution discusses the overview of management and focuses more on the four major functions of management and how individuals, teams and managers incorporate them at job settings. Chapter 16, Managing Information systems provides summary of the components of a firm’s information technology and role of software and how its development is changing business operations. The 13th chapter, Strategic System and Reorganization by authors, explains strategic information systems, its advantages, Porter’s five forces and how IT improves competitiveness. This paper will first explore the management functions at Kudler Fine Foods virtual organization; second, explain how technology and the Internet are utilized by Kudler currently and how that affects its management; and third, cite an example from Kudler illustrating each of the five forces from Porter’s Model.

Kudler’s Functions of Management

Kudler’s Fine Foods is a food store established by Kathy Kudler. The story behind Kudler Fine Foods is Kathy wanted to provide a food store where a shopper can find all the recipes and fresh ingredients to prepare a gourmet meal. She was frustrated from driving across town looking for ingredients to prepare her gourmet cooking. Kudler’s Fine Foods has three locations and the stores are stocked with domestic and imported food stuffs. The store is divided into Fresh Bakery and Pastries; Fresh Produce; Fresh Meat & Seafood; Condiments and Packaged Foods and Cheese’s and Specialty Dairy Products.

The four management functions Kudler’s utilize to manage the three stores are planning & strategizing, organizing, leading and controlling. At Kudler’s Kathy Kudler, the president and her three store managers; [Kent Vesper, Laurie Priest, and Juanita Lopez] as well as the director of Finance, and Accounting; Director Store and Operations, and Director Administrations and Human Resources are responsible for setting the organization’s “future objectives and mapping out activities to achieve those objectives” ( Gomez, Mejia, Balkin, 2002, p5). The management function, organizing, is managed by HR department and store manager. The supervision is done by the president. The HR department specifies how the Kudler’s “human, financial, physical, informational, and technical resources are arranged and coordinated to perform tasks to achieve desired goals” (Gomez, Mejia, Balkin, 2002, p6). The management function, leading, is managed by the president, her three store managers, the directors and the department of Finance and Accounting, Store and Operations, HR and supervisors. The controlling aspect of management is accomplished by the director of Store Operations and her department. Part of the roles for this department “consists of measuring performance, comparing it to objectives, implementing necessary changes, and monitoring progress” (Gomez, Mejia, Balkin, 2002, p6).

Technology and Internet at Kudler

Kudler uses technology and the internet to showcase pertinent information pertaining to its products. The internet provides access for the general public to view Kudler’s website. Foe example, a customer can log on to Kudler’s internet and obtain a general overview of the Food Services. This customer will able to find various information such as store hours; locations of the three stores; kinds and types of food services including placing special orders. On the other hand the intranet has limited accessibility. It is private or semi-private internal network. This network provides Kudler’s employees “to communicate with each other and to access company information and databases through their desktop or laptop computers” (Gomez, Mejia, Balkin, 2002, p392). The intranet at Kudler’s keeps its manager’s connected to each other while working in remote locations.

Example from Kudler Illustrating the five forces from Porter’s Model

The five forces from Porter’s Model are: “The threat of entry of new competitors; the bargaining power of suppliers; the bargaining power of customers (buyers); the threat of substitute products or services; the rivalry among