A. CASE STUDY (20 Points) Answer the following questions. You may write your answer in points. It is essential to use terminology that you have studied during the course. Case study: Cake Caf The Missing Gem in a Large Corporate World On an early and quiet morning, Kesmat was sitting at home enjoying her usual morning coffee, while lingering over an attractive offer made to her business. Mori Co. a well- established privately owned company with many successful ventures in the food and beverage industry, showed interest in collaborating with Cake Caf. Looking around her warm, cozy and petite store, she wondered if such a partnership with a big corporation would compromise the essence of her brand. Cake Caf was built on the entire entity of being a "safe haven" to customers. Cake Caf's first store was opened during a sensitive time in Egypt, just two months after the January 2011 revolution in Tahrir square. Although this time seems very risky and sensitive, it was surprisingly what made it successful. Kesmat, the founder, has mastered cake decoration through a course she took in Switzerland. At that time, Cake Cafe offered a very simple menu that offered simple desserts, savory snacks, juices and hot drinks. People returning from protests, would always pass by Cake Caf for a quick snack and drink after a long and eventful day. In this way, Cake Caf became the safe haven for all Zamalek residents. After the Zamalek store launch, Kesmat opened many other branches in City Starts, Hacienda, Palm Hills and Capital Business Park. Despite these many branches, Cake Caf has found ways to be flexible in tailoring its menu according to these different locations and consumer needs. With growing stores, Cake Caf has added menu items to include breakfast options, sandwiches, wraps, soup, pasta, main dishes, salads, desserts, and power bites. Its beverage menu includes coffee, hot beverages, milkshakes, smoothies and fresh juice. Kesmat had assigned a store manager to each of its branches. A Master Chef managed the central kitchen that catered for all the stores. In branches, the sous-chefs had to do the final touches according to a pre-specified cooking procedure given the limited utensils available in each branch. At the head office, Kesmat was the company's CEO and was assisted by a head of finance and another head for Human resources. Recently, she was able to attract a former marketing director from a multinational company to work as her marketing manager. However, Kesmat's favorite part was when she visited every branch during her daily routine. "My employees are my family. I always make sure that they stay and allow them for good breaks and snacks during their hectic day. I tell them that we are in an unbreakable relationship as long as they remain in love with the place ...," assets Kesmat. This Rosy picture does come without challenges that Kesmat has been facing since her early start in 2011. Cake Caf has many established competitors that offer cakes, desserts and drinks. These competitors include names like Beano's, Costa, Cilantro, Simmonds, Coffebean and Qahwa. Other shops that specialize only in cakes include Le Carnaval, Nola, Cakes Land, Dina Cantina, Crumbs and Carousel. All these competitors offer similar products or in some cases outperform Cake caf in terms of the cash they have to open new stores and buy state- of-art equipment. Moreover, with a growing business, costs like equipment, inventory and salaries are also increasing. Therefore, Kesmat must look for the most appropriate sources of funding like obtaining loans, personal investment, or adding investors and partners. To do so, she should have a very accurate record of financial statements and projections to either present to banks or promising investors. This is something that is really missing in the 2 company and has given Kesmat long sleepless nights on how to fix it. The food and beverage business is growing in Egypt but to accommodate this growth, funding needs to be there. With all these facts, Kesmat was torn between accepting the offer and thus losing partial control on her little baby or face all of this alone and run through the risk of closing the business due to lack of financial resources !!!! Case Questions 1. Conduct SWOT analysis on Cake Caf mentioning at least one item in each category. (5 Points) 2. According to Maslow's Hierarchy of need what is the level Cake Cafe employees are at? What do you recommend the management of the company does to motivate its employees? (5 Points) 3. Discuss the departmentalization of Cake Cafe using evidence from the case. (2 Points) 4. What are Cake caf's core competency and what are its distinctive competencies? ( 3 points) 5. What recommendation in terms of corporate strategy would you give to Kesmat? Justify your answers. (5 Points)