Kudler_Fine_Food

In this paper I am going to discuss the potential legal, ethical, and information security concerns related to the Kudler Fine Foods frequent shopper program and how any of this may or may not have an effect on the overall organizational structure on Kudler Fine Foods. First, what is the Kudler Fine Foods frequent shopper program' This is program that is made up by the marketing departments and Kudler Fine foods to track customer purchase patterns and offer shopper incentives through a loyalty point programs. The beginning of this program will assist the Kudler Fine Food in inspiring customer loyalty and react to customer shopping orientations. For the customers of Kudler Fine Foods, specialty items are more vital than the price of the items they are intended to purchase, so in this case rather than offering daily discounts for purchase frequency, the company has united with a loyalty points program to reward customers with redeemable points for high-value gift items, airline advances or other specialty foods. The prominent goals of the Kudler Fine Foods Frequent Shopper program is to encourage customer loyalty, to better react to customer's buying demands and to augment food governing skillfulness. A successful implementation of the program should augment revenue over time by modifying loyalty and meeting customer needs and decrease costs by amending inventory procedures. At first glance I see great potential on legality issues and great potential to improve Kudler Fine foods. In regards to legality issues I notice that with tracking customer’s purchases could get into a privacy issue with the customer. Personally, I would not want my purchases to be cataloged and made into some report for a company. I also see a possible issue at how the word of mouth/solicitation of this program goes out. This is to be solicited by targeting high-income zip codes which in my opinion has great potential to be a big discrimination battle if word gets out. This would be a battle of high-income customers versus lower-income customers. Overall, Kudler needs to figure out how to properly handle consumer’s information so they can protect themselves and their customers. There is big concern for information security. The personal information of the customer is a big deal and concern if information gets leaked it could cause a big fiasco for Kudler. This is a risk that could be too big for the company. There are big ethical concerns regarding frequent shopper programs. One of the bigger ethical concerns is that by tracking and cataloging all of the individual customer’s purchases that it will create an area where too much information can be accessed by one individual. Another ethical concern is being able to train company employees on how to handle all of customer’s private and personal information. This program has cost problems. The overall price of the products will remain the same or has the potential to increase. However, customers will have incentives that are provided by the loyalty points that can be redeemed for high end gift items, airline first-class upgrades, or other specialty foods. Another cost issue is one of the draws for the customers, which is to be trained by a world renowned chef, which local celebrities, other food experts, and even have Kathy Kudler herself there for an upscale event. To have an upscale event plus having higher-income people there as well is going to cost a fortune. This may or may not be worth having if high-end customers don’t show up and shop. The program itself will have little to no cost to start up. Advertisement can be done through word of mouth, internet, and through fliers, There are too many issues either legal, ethical, or costly for this program to be what Kudler Fine Foods want it to be. Just legal issues alone can be a deal breaker for this program. You have privacy concerns, and discrimination against the lower-income customers if how this program gets solicited gets out. The overall organization structure could be affected a great deal by this program from Kudler Fine Foods. This is from the frequent shopper program not going well as expected. However, Kudler Fine Foods has a great deal of success and growth and by expanding which this program does and it allows them to compete with their everyday competitors. Security of sensitive information is a big concern regarding frequent shopper programs. Without the proper training and knowledge of company databases of personal information the potential for an unauthorized entry is great and the chance of identity theft, theft, or fraud is high. Proper training should prevent customer information being leaked and shared with other companies. In conclusion the Kudler Fine Foods frequent shopper program is a good idea to attract new customers and anyone knows that working in customer service that attracting new customers isn’t the easiest thing to do for anyone. The incentive of offering loyalty points to consumers and have them redeem loyalty points for high-value gifts is a great idea and it will and should influence customers and potential customers to come in and shop. One of the biggest concerns is a potential public relations nightmare if it doesn’t get fixed. Privacy of sensitive information that belongs to the consumers is a big necessity and should at the top of the list to make sure it gets resolved before this program gets off it feet.