Case Study: Gazing at Starbucks?
1. In this case study you can read the four reasons why gazing has become an important trend. Why is it important for companies like Starbucks to know the reasons behind this trend?
In the case author states four reasons why gazing became an important trend:
Fast pace life and time pressure leave no time to cook and leads people to eat on the go
People spend much more time driving and eating in their cars
Lack of family life leads to unstructured life of teens affecting their eating habits
"Small households typically cook fewer meals" In the USA this number increased to 60 percent.
It is important for companies like Starbucks to know the reasons behind this trend because of the following. First of all this trend has an impact on strategic planning. It is crucial to take in to account uncertainties of changing market while assessing external environment (customers, industry, competitors, etc) and internal strength and weaknesses of the company. This trend influences company's formulation of objectives and business strategies.
Secondly, understanding reasons facilitates formulation marketing strategy. More specifically, the company formulates marketing concept and builds brand reputation by understanding customer's needs. For example, after analyzing customers eating behaviors and finding that only "35 percent of Americans eat two or fewer "square" meals daily" Starbucks sell only high quality coffees along with variety of pastries and few sandwiches in the "coffee bars."
Thirdly, taking into account reasons helps develop a customer oriented mission (what are we doing now? and visions (what do we want to achieve in the future?). The company tested four Café Starbucks in Seattle area, where they were serving meals. However, Cafés were soon closed as customers come to Starbucks to gaze rather than eat. Therefore, understanding the reasons behind this trend helped to identify the vision of the organization to stay a "coffee bar" rather than Café Starbucks.
To make best business and marketing decisions is only possible when acquiring all the possible knowledge about the current trends and the reasons behind it.
2. Suppose the marketing manager of Starbucks wants to use the information in this case as input for a strategic marketing plan.
a. Which information in this case should be part of the customer analysis?
Customer analysis includes potential customer's attributes, needs, and perceptions about the company. In the case author distinguished different segments of customers.
663). In this article, it states that “our culture and environment” play an important part on what we as adults eat and our children. Our culture has gotten so caught up in fast food, that we think it is no longer normal to even cook a home cooked meal. And we have also taught our children, that eating fast food is normal and anything other than that isn’t. And the only way to change how people feel about eating fast food regularly and never cooking a home cook meal starts with the environment (Bittman, 2011, p. 663). We have to start by approaching real unprocessed food that we buy from the supermarket, and “…raising our children in homes that don’t program them for fast-produced, eaten-on-the-run, high calorie” and start by “…giving them the gift of appreciating the pleasures of nourishing one another and enjoying that nourishment together” (Bittman, 2011, p. 664). Family time spent together eating a home-cooked meal is something that a family can appreciate as a group. It not only makes people appreciate family and togetherness, but
In 2002, unexpected findings of a market research showed problems regarding customer satisfaction and brand meaning for Starbucks customers. The situation was unacceptable for a company whose overall objective is to build the most recognized and respected brand in the world. Starbucks was supposed to represent a new and different place where any man would relax and enjoy quality time, alone or with others. But the market research showed that in the mind of the consumers, Starbucks brand is viewed as corporative, trying to expand endlessly and looking to make lots of money. This huge gap between customers' perception and Starbucks' values and goals called for immediate action.
The structure of Starbucks business communication is exceptional. Rather you are in their store buying a Caramel Frappuccino®, visiting their website or watching one of their advertisements on television; as the consumer, the message is loud and clear. Pick up any newspaper and you are likely to find an article about the coffee giant. Starbucks pledges a commitment to their over 172,000 partners (employees) and the community. “We realize our people are the cornerstone of our success, and we know that their ideas, commitment and connection to our customers are truly the essential elements in the Starbucks Experience” (Starbucks, 2008).
Emphasis on quality, Starbucks Experience, brand image, and important suppliers to dispute lower price contributions to competitors hence increasing profits
The importance of economic indicators to the strategic planning process in any organization is the ability to benchmark economic conditions that contribute to improve profitability, business growth and market size. Leadership sets up the mission “to establish Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world.” In doing so, they have created a set of industry-leading, comprehensive coffee-buying guidelines addressing coffee quality, financial transparency, social and environmental responsibility. Starbucks strategy is also expanding market in globally to provide high quality coffee in convenient and visibility locations. They are continuing to innovate and extend the business with imaginative new ready-to-drink beverages and expanded packaged coffee offerings (Starbucks Corporation, 2007).
Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice opened its first store in April 1971 in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, by owners who had a passion for dark-roasted coffee that was popular in Europe, but hard to find in the U.S. (Harrison et al., 2005; Venkatraman & Nelson, 2008). The company’s mission was to provide Seattle with the best access to dark-roasted coffee, and sought to educated customers about the product. As a matter of customer education and acceptance of the product, Starbucks grew and expanded into the successful domestic market it is today. Much of this success can be attributed to a focus on the total customer experience and s...
Koehn, N.F., Besharov, M.A., & Miller, K. (2008). Starbucks Coffee Company in the 21st Century. [Case study]. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Next customer research panels can be beneficial. These panels consists of several individuals who ha...
... middle of paper ... ... Strategic planning kit for dummies, 2nd edition. Retrieved from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/strategic-planning-diversification.html “Starbucks”.
One of the main problems that Starbucks is facing at the present time is the ability to maintain national competitive advantage (Monash South Africa, 2014). Due to their local demand conditions, Starbucks tries to satisfy all customers by trying “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” (Starbucks Corporation, 2014). Local demand conditons consist of a company trying satisfy needs of their closest customers and expanding their competitive advantage by upgrading their strategic management policies (Monash South Africa, 2014).
Based on market research findings, businesses can develop "target audiences," which are specific groups of customers that have distinct needs or desires for the product or service. The research can be used to determine many things such as; how frequent the target audience will purchase a particular item, how much money they are willing to pay for it, and what is their overall satisfaction from it. Upon analyzing this information, manufacturers and service providers can get a clear picture of where to focus their efforts and resources most effectively. The information acquired from market research assists budding entrepreneurs into making wise and profitable business decisions.
These are but a few of the many strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats that the Starbucks company may face. This is why a marketing team along with data and analytics is essential to comprising a new product. It requires research, innovation, hard work, and a little luck, the Starbucks Brand is more than just coffee. It’s a simple yet detailed product tailored to meet the consumers need at home, at work, and in between. (Starbucks Corporation,
Our eating habits can be influenced by cost, time, nutrition information, the art of cooking, and the influence of statistics. These can play a part in how we determine whether the food we’re eating is beneficial to our daily activities and ways we can change what we eat to better suit our lifestyles. We have started to lose the art of cooking and factors such as time, money and laziness influence whether we cook meals for ourselves. For a busy New Zealand family, where both parents work and the children go to school, it is hard to have a meal prepared on time.
In addition to being best-known supplier of the finest coffee and promising only the highest quality products, Starbucks emphasizes firm values, provides guidelines to enhance employee self-esteem. This is to ensure continued customer satisfaction. Moreover, diversity has become a priority to providing an inviting environment to all consumers. Starbucks continues to abide by a strict, slow growth policy in which they set out to dominate a market before moving on to expand, thus history has shown this strategy to be successful for Starbucks, making them one the fastest growing companies nationwide.
With clear core values towards providing quality coffee, the best service, and atmosphere, Starbucks has enjoyed great success since it was founded 30 years ago. The company has being doing very well for last 11 years with 5% or more store sales increase, even with the rest economy still reeling from the post-9/11 recession. However recent research, conducted to Starbucks, have showed some concerns regarding company’s problem meeting customers’ expectations.