The use of information technology enables Kudler Fine Foods to solve all of its internal problems as well as improve their customer relations and provide them with the scope to expand their services in the future. The core function of Kudler Fine Foods is to sell food stuff. Traditionally the process of selling has been equated with good communication skills, advertising and offering good variety of foods. Today, there is a need for an enhanced set of skills that includes the old skills, but also reflects current skills related to the effective use of information technology. To be most effective, the acquisition of these new skills will be achieved through a branch-integrated IT approach to support purchase, stock maintenance, employee management and customer management. Marketing Kudler Fine Foods is currently poised for expanding its services, improving the efficiency of its operations and increasing the consumer purchase cycle as a means to increasing the loyalty and profitability of its consumers. In all of these three aspects, the use of information technology is very important. Kudler has a new marketing program targeted at select consumers to show them how to prepare specialty foods. The draw of the consumers will be based on time spent in the store and frequency of visits to the store and number of guests they bring to the store. The selection of the consumers is made through the computer. Kudler also uses technology to track purchase behavior at the individual customer level and give them high value incentives through a partnership with a loyalty points program. From a service perspective, Kudler is benchmarking Nordstrom department stores. This means, it compares its own standards with those of Nordstrom department stores using special software systems. Moreover, information technology has provided the answer to the problem faced by the purchasing department to find ways to reduce costs of ordering foods and minimize the amount of food to be stored, while also having a zero stock out policy. Purchasing has developed a supplier relations program and has solicited the help of marketing to help roll out the program. Financial Applications Kudler Fine Foods has used IT to track information such as dollar value and profit margin per transaction, dollar sales and profit levels by day, and dollar sales and profit margins by item. Recently, in order to leverage the information to create a more intimate relationship with their customers, the firm is integrating a system to track customer purchase behavior over time. This program is in the process of being developed. Marketing Budget The marketing budget is primarily comprised of new initiatives, marketing communications, and marketing research. IT is used in all these three aspects through computerization. Within the next 12 months, Kudler plans to acquire new customers through social network marketing which is a modern application of IT. Kudler HR system Kudler uses Quick Books and has outsourced payroll processing to Intuit. Intuit’s database tracks the following information for each employee: personal data, pay rate, tax exemptions, hire date, seniority date, and organizational information. Changes are entered