Overview
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Scenario: The Coffee & Tea Emporium*
You inherited the management of the Coffee and Tea Emporium (better known as The Emporium) in Boston, Massachusetts, from your family member in December 2023 as a sole proprietorship. Located in the Back Bay area of downtown Boston on the corner of Gloucester and Newbury Streets, The Emporium is known for its coffee (beans are roasted on the premises) and imported teas as well as simple light fare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Many executives stop by the store to and from work to pick up a quick meal.
Your family member bought the building 10 years ago with a commercial mortgage for 30 years for $2 million. After his death, and as the new sole owner, you were able to pay off $480,000 of it leaving a balance of 840,000 at 6.5% over the remaining 20 years.
You married a patent attorney at a small firm in the city in June of 2024. Since your marriage, your spouse has been working weekends at the store since The Emporium seems to always be short-staffed. You are the acting manager along with your spouse who is the assistant manager. Now your spouse will not be able to work the weekend shifts due to work demands and subsequent travel requirements.
You know the previous family owner was a bit lax on conforming to regulations, controlling finances, taxes, and management of this store in their last years. The owner also neglected the increasingly competitive market in which The Emporium operates. You are cognizant of the need to improve the staffing at the store and attend to the bottom line, which after 2023 taxes did not look very good. Because of this, although you pay your spouse wages like the rest of the staff, you have not taken any payments as yet for your work.
You are tasked with making The Emporium become more compliant with regulations, including your spouse as part owner of The Emporium, reconfiguring this company for the future, and manage the business more efficiently and successfully.
You are also thinking that once you get everything under control again, in the next few years, you would like to expand to have another store in Faneuil Hall or very nearby. But first, you need to make the store more profitable and legally compliant.
You have been so busy running the store ever since assuming ownership that you have not been able to address marketing or finances adequately. Your store was marketed as “a family café,” with no discernable efforts at promotion other than a sidewalk chalkboard toting the specials of the day. Still, the café received good reviews from a notice you found from 2021 with a special mention of the baked goods as well as the coffee. There is a computerized register system but you have noticed it is not linked to anything other than receipts.
Each day, the staff clock in at the back door. They don aprons and begin their shift. The staff write down orders and put them up on the rotating order belt that goes to the kitchen. The staff complains that The Emporium is stuck back in the year 2000 with takeout orders by phone taking too much time. Your staff and the assistant manager currently do not receive any benefits other than their pay ($24 per hour except for part-time student help) and sometimes a small bonus at the end of the year.
Restaurant hours: 7 a.m.–7 p.m. M-F and 10 a.m.–3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday
Continue to Tab 2 to view the checklist and rubric.
Disclaimer: The organization and characters depicted in this exercise are fictional. Any resemblance to real organizations or individuals is purely coincidental. This exercise may include actual companies and brand names solely for instructional purposes; this exercise is not associated with any such actual company or brand name. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
You realize that Google Maps has several Starbucks competitors in the scenario area. You will look at Starbucks’ current menus, look over your current Emporium menu, view the results of some customer surveys on the office computer and address the checklist items:
Checklist:
- Describe the current branding of The Emporium and how they can protect it.
- Explain what differentiates The Emporium from the competition.
- Explain a SWOT Analysis of The Emporium.
- Describe The Emporium’s 4 P’s.
- Describe The Emporium’s current target market, and what the target market should be.
- Explain how you can improve the (1) branding, (2) menu, and (3) address the target market more successfully based on the summarized customer survey results.
- Outline a means of communicating more effectively to targeted customers.
- Your submission must include a minimum of two short in-text citations with accompanying references.