Perla Jackson owns and operates a successful cuisine company. She knows her business, but she often wonders if anyone else really does. Each catered event she manages is unique. Her 7

company enjoys an excellent reputation because of Perlas attention to detail and total commitment to customer service. In a good month, Perla and her staff of 30 employees will serve over 12,000 lunch and dinner meals. Last year sales exceeded $3,000,000. Perlas company was simply the one that people always called when a large special party or event needed to be executed extremely well. The biggest catered event 4,200 people for dinner at the Convention Center, and Perlas team performed flawlessly. Although she was confident that she knew how to operate her business, she wondered about her profitability. - Were her food production people and bartenders as cost conscious as they should be? - Were her servers truly efficient? - Were her profits reasonable? These were legitimate questions, and Perla wanted solid answers. 1- Identify and write out one specific food, one beverage, one labor, and two profitability ratios you believe would be critical for Perla to compute and monitor if she wants to effectively analyze her business success. 2- What would be your reply to Perla if she asked you how often each of the five ratios you have suggested should be computed? Why? 3- How could comparative ratio analysis help address Perlas concerns? What are some data sources Perla could turn to as she sought answers to her business effectiveness questions?