The three main activities of Le Carolo are a quality French cuisine shop, outside catering and a sandwich shop called ‘Go Gourmet. The owner of the business is Stephan Lablaine, who himself is a French person; he is very keen to introduce French cuisine to Britain and is very protective about who works for him. He started as a small shop selling French quality food in 2000, it this year in 2007 that the business expanded as a sandwich shop just a few hundred meters away called ‘Go Gourmet’.
Le Carolo uses the best imported products from France such as cheese, fine wines, frog’s legs and snails etc. The target markets are older members of society, primarily over 40+’s with a higher disposable income to spend on luxury items such as French foods. Le Carolo makes most of its money from outside catering, this includes catering for parties, business meetings, weddings, birthdays and also the local hospital Lambert memorial community hospital.
Even though on average Go Gourmet serves about 100 people a day and Le Carolo serve about 10 people a day, Le Carolo makes a lot more money because the average spend per head is about i?? 150 whereas as Go Gourmet its about i?? 3 per head. So even if Le Carolo is having a bad day then it still makes far more money than the sandwich shop. Le Carolo and Go Gourmet are owned by the same owner, Stephan Lablem, he is a sole trader which means, he bears full responsibility for the company, profits are incorporated to personal finances and he completely runs the business.
La Carolo and Go Gourmet are situated in the same town, Thirsk, to the side shows a map of were the main shop la Carolo is actually situated, this location is quite useful to the business because its just of the high street so they will get a lo of walk in/ passing trade but is also easily found for customers specifically looking for it. Stephan Lablem’s, main aim to give up on his business in 5 years time, although this is suggesting that he wants to make enough money in that 5 years and form the sale of his business to only need to work a low paying nine till five job so he can spend more time with his family.
This is what is known as a SMART aim because its: Specific, he wants to spend more time with his family. Measurable, he will be able to check the books at the end of each financial year to check that they are on target. Achievable, at the current rate he is working at he will easily be able to achieve his aim within 5 years. Realistic, he hasn’t set the bar to high. Time Constricted, he wants to achieve is aim in 5 years. To achieve this aim he will need to set and objective to make the aim more achievable, this is to keep the business’s profits maximised for the full 5 years,
Although it does not seem that his aim if very ambitious, it will still be hard work to keep the business running smoothly and efficiently to maximise the profits. It is important for Stephan to set these aims and objectives because he will then know how far he is of from achieving his ultimate goal to spend more time with his family, it is easy to see that he is successful in meeting his objectives so far because he said in his speech that his shops couldn’t possibly work any harder witch is why he has stopped his advertising for the moment, bearing this in mind it seems quite possible that he will achieve his aim within five years.
The type of ownership is suited very well to Stephan because he as a sole trader takes all the profits and doesn’t need to split them with a partner; therefore he can achieve his aim in much less time. One important reason that Stephan would want to be a sole trader is that he can keep the business French whereas a new partner may take that away.
The Ownership may need to change over time due to several reasons, one of which might be that he wants to expand the business, in which case he would probably need to take on a new partner to help him handle all the running and financial issue that may arise, although taking on a partner would split the profits it would eventually benefit him because taking on a new partner would allow the business to expand massively because he could handle half and the partner could handle half.
If a new partner were to be taken on by Stephan, there would hopefully be new skills and ideas brought along with the new partner such as new ideas for menus and how to make certain new products.
He would certainly need to change his aims and objectives to suit the new needs of the business, the first one may be to train the new partner to his required specifications, and on a much wider scale for the new partner to manage a chain of shops in another town or city, of course doing this would impact heavily on his life as training a new partner, and possibly opening a new chain of shops would mean not selling the business in 5 years and he would definitely not be able to see is children anymore than he does now and most likely even less, considering this it seems unlikely that he would change his current aims and objectives because then he would not see is family which is something he would not want to do
