Kara’s Cupcake in France
Introduction Kara’s cupcakes is a cupcake catering company in San Francisco bay area. It was started business idea that flourished out of passion.
Kara Haspel Lind; business started at home where she did most of her baking until the demand for her cupcakes exceeded her supply. Kara was forced to quit her corporate job and focused on being a full time chef. Kara’s cupcake business goes beyond the conventional cake store to offering catering services to private events and running a caravan. Kara’s cupcake is renowned for catering in weddings, birthday parties and other occasions. Kara’s caravan is a bakery on wheels that brings the mouth-watering delights to the people.
The cupcake business is a delicate one and Kara’s cupcakes have put in place stringent measures to ensure that she only uses the best quality for her products. In fact, karats cupcakes uses locally made products as this ensures that the quality of her ingredients is not compromised. In addition, this enables her to create a fit relationship with suppliers. Kara’s cupcakes gives back to the community through donations to charitable organizations. Business environment (macro) A business that has entered the French market will have the advantage of the dynamic population that lives in France due to its central location in Europe.
It has an admirable infrastructural sytem, which could be beneficial to business such as Kara’s cupcakes where punctuality is of great significance. The society is very well developed therefore a greater number of people who would be willing to purchase cupcakes, which in other poorer parts of the world may be considered luxuries. France has a strong agricultural industry and is known for its sound food industry (Gorrill, 2007). For a country that is conscious of its environment then, Kara’s cupcakes will appreciate the environmental policy that France has enforced. Some of the French people do not believe in a win-win situation; instead they believe in a Pareto equilibrium where “if you win, I lose” this can make negotiating over prices a challenging process,Business practices (Micro).
The sense of time keeping between the French and the Americans is quite different; while the Americans find it rude to start a business meeting late it’s an accepted practice among the French to turn up for a business meeting up-to 15 minutes late. They even have a name for it “quart d’heure marseillais”. It is likely to find Kara in any one of her kitchens showing that her business is managed as a team effort; this is in great contrast to the French management style of vertical hierarchy (Rochefort, 1999). In a vertical hierarchy, the final decision rests with top management personnel. The French do mix their professional life with their personall lives and maintain strict boundaries between their two lives. Business lunches are a common feature in the French corporate where ideas are exchanged which differs from the American objective of a meeting, which is to reach a conclusion.
Sensitivity is required in handling individual contributions of the employees because failure has a long-term effects and one is frowned upon which is detrimental to their self-confidence. The French are often branded as slow in their negotiation styles, but this is because they analyze each detail even the basic ideas that would be skipped in an American boardroom (Rochefort, 2011). There is a very crucial American practice that Kara’s cupcakes could export to France and that is customer service. One on one relationship with the client is reserved for the high-end stores that deal in luxury goods. In contrast, American customers are treated to one on one relationship with the managers on all stores that intend to create customer loyalty. Conclusion.
The French society is highly polychromic which may on certain occasion increase productivity. The French are a very loyal people, which are essential for a new company, because it needs a dedicated workforce to establish itself. Formality is a significant part of sealing any business deal. When pitching an idea one should not be thrown off balance by the persistent interruptions because a person who can defend their ground impresses the French.
