Starbucks Case Analysis Background The company started its activity in 1971 as small coffee shop located in Seattle specialized in selling whole arabica coffee beans. After being taken over by Howard Schultz in 1982, following a rapid and impressive growth, by mid 2002 the company was the dominant specialty-coffee brand in North America, running about 4,500 stores, 400 international stores and 930 licenses. 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. Christine Day's interpretation of the market research made her think that by shortening the service time for each customer to maximum 3 minutes, all the problems would be solved. However, this solution came with the price of $40 million per year, due to a significant increase in the labor. The proposed solution would most certainly lead to the result desired by Day, but would it be enough to restore Starbucks' damaged brand image? Are 20 seconds of customer service really time worth $40 million per year? This is the question we are trying to answer in this case, while seeking alternative purposes for this expenditure, in order to achieve higher benefits. How did they get there? Great quality products, customized, served in clean, convenient placed stores for everyday coffee, friendly and fast serving, everything in a pleasant atmosphere - these were just few factors that lead to the great success of Starbucks during the nineties. Their USP was a place where every American could escape from home or work, for a coffee drinking ritual; high quality coffee, according to each customer's taste, served in a special, intimate ambience. Their image was supposed to appeal to anyone, being based on the idea of community, "exploiting" the need of people to interact with each other, in a "third place", away from home or work. By looking at the latest market report, we cannot really draw the conclusion that customer satisfaction is really declining, since there is no reference to an earlier similar report.
Starbucks Corporation is one of the world's largest coffee roaster, marketer, and retailer of coffee. In 1971, three entrepreneurs, Jordan Bowker, Zev Siegel, and Jerry Baldwin opened first Starbucks store in Seattle, WA. In 1982, Howard Schultz joined Starbucks as a marketing director. He came up with the idea to make Starbucks a coffee house chain but Starbucks founders rejected the idea and he left the company in 1985. Later, Schultz started his own coffee bar named “Il Giornale”. In a couple of years, he was able to buy Starbucks Corp. from its original owners. He renamed his coffee bars "Il Giornale" as Starbucks. In 1987, Starbucks opened its first store outside the Seattle in Vancouver and Chicago. In 1996, Starbucks opened its first international store in Tokyo, Japan. [1,2]
Founded in 1971 at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices, as it was originally called, has been “brewing-up” its famous blends in over 43 countries, including the United States. Now called Starbucks Coffee Company, business isn’t just about the coffee and tea anymore. Starbucks has its own line of bottled water, handcrafted beverages, fresh food, entertainment, merchandise and a Starbucks Card. The company has received numerous awards for their outstanding business practices. Fortune Magazine has ranked them as one of “The Best 100 Companies to Work For” in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2008 (Starbucks, 2008). The Starbucks Experience provides consumers and the general public a direct line a of business communication. From friendly baristas to press releases from CEO Howard Schultz, Starbucks keeps its “partners” informed.
The company’s founder and CEO, Howard Schultz, has been successful in creating Starbucks into something that we didn’t really know we needed until we had it. He has meticulously crafted a brand for the company that adds a psychological value to its offerings. Thereby, when you buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, you buy an experience. The somewhat quiet, not-so-rushed atmosphere along with dimmed ambience and friendly staff found at Starbucks’ stores add a feel-good factor to your purchase. As a result, people are willing to pay a premium for coffee at Starbucks even if McDonald’s were running a promotion offering free coffee. The premium prices translate to superior margins for its investors.
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...
The wildly successful coffee shop that can be seen around the world started from a humble beginning with just one single store in Seattle’s Pike Place market, as a retailer of whole beans and ground coffee. It was because of three academics, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker, that “Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice” was started. The company went through a couple adjustment periods. In 1882 Howard Schultz was hired to supervise marketing and retail stores. It wasn’t long after that he decided to step down and start his own coffee stores after disagreements with reference to what the Starbucks experience should entail. Starbucks Tea and Spice once again came back into Schultz’s life in 1887 when Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker sold the rights to their company. Howard Schultz took this as on opportunity to combine companies with the name Starbucks Corporation. In 1992 Starbucks Corporation went public. Due to successful leadership and business practices, Starbucks can be found serving its customers in over 50 countries and 17,000 locations.
Starbucks is currently the industry leader in specialty coffee. They purchased more high quality coffee beans than anyone else in the world and keep in good standings with the producers to ensure they get the best beans. Getting the best beans is only the first part, Starbucks also has a “closed loop system” that protects the beans from oxygen immediately after roasting to the time of packaging. They did this through their invention of a one-way valve which let the natural gasses escape but keeping oxygen out. This gave them the unique ability to ensure freshness and extended the shelf life to 26 weeks. Starbucks isn’t only about the coffee, it’s also about a place where people can escape to enjoy music, reflect, read, or just chat. It is a total coffee experience. The retail outlet has been responsible for much of Starbucks growth and has contributed substantially to their brand equity.
Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin and Ziv Siegl founded Starbucks in 1971. Their goal was to sell the finest quality whole beans and ground coffees (Starbucks timeline and history, 2004). In 1982, Starbucks had grown to five stores and started serving coffee to restaurants and espresso bars. Harold Schultz was employed as the director of retail operations and marketing. Harold Schultz convinced the founders of Starbucks to open a downtown Seattle coffee bar, which opened in 1984. With the success of Seattle coffee bar, Schultz left Starbucks to start his own company named Il Giornale. In 1987, Il Giornale acquired Starbucks retail operations for 4 million dollars. In addition, Il Giornale changed its name to Starbucks Corporation and opened locations in Chicago and Vancouver, B.C. (Starbucks timeline and history, 2004).
Starbucks did not escape the common practice of adapting and integrating the business to different geographic regions, but they did stick to their guns when it came to their standard product line-up and their no-smoking policy. Surprisingly, these conditions were met with wide acceptance. Analysts felt the real challenge would be in the European marketplace, what with coffeehouses on every corner to compete with. Again, the stores did very well, mainly because of the newer, cleaner environment they provided compared to the older locations of established houses.
Starbucks Corporation was founded in 1985 and is based in Seattle, Washington. (Bramhall) Company History The story of Starbucks coffee history begins in Seattle in 1971 when the first Starbucks opened at Pike Place Market, which is Seattle's and the Nation's oldest Farmer's Market. At this time, the company was a local coffee roasting facility. That remained their core business until 1982, when Howard Schulz joined the company. He was the new marketing executive and began right away to convince more and more local cafes, upscale restaurants, and hotels to buy Starbucks coffee.
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).
Starbucks, a coffee bean sales company did not have much of a marketing plan in place at its inception. Based in Seattle Washington the company began to sell coffee beans to espresso bars and upscale restaurants back in 1982. It took 11 years to progress to that level of production, they originally were a local store vendor at Pike Place Market. The director of marketing brought back the espresso bar idea from his travels in Milan. (Company Profile, 2015) The Pacific Northwest was filled with working class men and women that were drawn to the coffeehouse tradition brought in from Italy.
In 1971, three young entrepreneurs began the Starbucks Corporation in Seattle Washington. Their key goal was to sell whole coffee beans. Soon after, Starbucks began experiencing huge growth, opening five stores all of which had roasting facilities, sold coffee beans and room for local restaurants. In 1987, Howard Schultz bought Starbucks from its original owners for $4 million after expanding Starbucks by opening three coffee bars. These coffee bars were based on an idea that was originally proposed to the owner who recruited him into the corporation as manager of retail and marketing. Overall, Schultz strategy for Starbucks was to grow slow. Starbucks went on to suffer financial losses and overhead operating expenses rose as Starbucks continued its slow expansion process. Despite the initial financial troubles, Starbucks went on to expand to 870 stores by 1996. Sales increased 84%, which brought the corporation out of debt. With the growing success, Starbucks planned to open 2000 stores by year 2000.
Starbucks – one of the fastest growing companies in the US and in the world - had built its position on the market by connect with its customers, and create “third place” beside home and work, where people could relax and enjoy others or themselves. It was the motto of Starbucks’ owner Howard Schultz and mostly thanks to his philosophy; company has became the biggest coffee drink retailer in the world. However, within the new customer satisfaction report, there is shown some concerns, that company has lost the connection with customers and it must been taken some steps to help Starbucks to go back on the right path regarding customer satisfaction.
By remaining true to core competency and a laser like focus effort towards quality; Starbucks has managed to analyze, adapt and create brand loyalty to their particular market and remained the top competitor throughout the coffee industry. Americans in general enjoy a good, hot cup of coffee to start their day. In any given business, seeing a torrid cup of coffee in a cup from Starbucks is not uncommon. Starbucks is one of the most popular coffee franchises in the world with locations in 62 countries. Starbucks has been around since the year 1971where they started off as a coffee bean roaster and retailer. This research paper will briefly explores, examine, and assess Starbucks quality marketing and management strategy. Additionally, this research
When I saw this discussion, I couldn’t help but think of Starbucks and the impact they’ve made throughout their 45 years of establishment. I worked with them for about 7 years and saw how unique they were from your everyday coffee and latte spots. A retail company with thousands of coffee shops in the US as well as in other countries, this particular retailer has been able to catch the eyes of all ages as well as locations throughout the world. For example, today college students utilize Starbucks locations to study rather than go to a nearby library. Starbucks is also known for its best coffee and espresso drinks (Latte or Frappuccino) and with one of its delicious espresso 's any student or just a person stopping in to enjoy its lounge area where there is free Wi-Fi is awesome! Starbucks lifecycle has made a 360 turn around and been revamped twice to accommodated the growing market. Customizing their brand to fit more in with everything and not just one thing. By doing this they’ve created multiple product lifecycles within their own lifecycle as a corporate company.