Cafe Latte

Café Latte Case

Cassie Morigaki

Prin. Of Mang.

There are a few major problems that the partners faced with opening of Café Latte. One of the big problems having Cynthia be the only partner who does the planning and designing of the Café. This makes it easy for things to be personalized to her needs and desires around the restaurant and not taking in the opinions and suggestions of the other partners. They also failed in helping out by not giving Cynthia any idea on how to design. The word, "Classy" can be interpreted in different ways. It would be more helpful if the other partners would be more involved with the planning.

Another error is this situation was that only Cynthia traveled to the West Coast to learn the essentials of coffee and drinking preparation. More than one partner should have been involved to allow for more than one reference to the course could be available through out all the business partners. There should also be a business partner who had some experience in either business of coffee business so ensure that they would at least have a decent start into the market industry instead of going in blind.

Café Latte should have also looked into the competition of the business, and in the area instead of the profits of the business. Business is more than just making money and knowing how to run a business would help.

The case does not mention money but it is curious to see how much each partnership is and how much they contribute through their money input. This could shed light on the fact why the other partners had built up stress and frustration at Cynthia at the beginning of the case. When the partners gave up their power completely to Cynthia to design and rebuild the store. Since it was in a terrible state at the beginning, everything had to be redone from scratch, which Cynthia was in charge of, and she also took care of creating the menu and the employee hand guide. That puts a lot of work on to one person, and then the project becomes personalized. It takes up their time and that partner sees all of their hard work, but when it is criticized or put down, there is tension of all the work the partner put in to be taken down by someone who in their eyes, have not don't much.

Business are a end product of team work and this company, Café Latte, has not worked together as a team to decide on the company, or to create it from the ground up, or to ensure that it will survive. They needed to go to a few business classes and maybe taken advice from their parents on how to run a business. That would allow a basis of the necessary steps needed to start a successful business.