Sbucks Financial Analysis Paper

The “Coffee Wars – The Big Three: Starbucks, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts” article focuses on the company analysis of the Starbucks brand and how its main competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts, has affected their brand and driven competition higher. Even though there are many companies trying to enter the specialty coffee market, these three companies own the majority of the market share. With Starbucks’ top quality and above average prices they hold a different market than the fast coffee/food market of Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks; yet the competitive moves Dunkin’ Donuts has made over the years in order to compete with Starbucks and surpass McDonald’s has driven competition up between all three companies. The competition has stiffened ever more in the past ten years due to the changing economy. This led to “the big three” to come up with different techniques to gain competitive advantage over the other. Although the competition between these companies is to gain most of the market share, consumers are still loyal to a certain brand; this makes it difficult to gain each other’s clientele. McDonald’s continues to appeal to customers who want value and speed, Dunkin’ Donuts focuses on the middle-class, while Starbucks a customer who desires a higher quality product along with being recognized for using the brand.

Since Starbucks entered the coffee retail business, the company has made many trade-off business decisions. The first major trade-off was made when Howard Schultz wanted to acquire present day Starbucks from three entrepreneurs Baldwin, Siegel and Bowker. Therefore, Schultz prior to the acquisition made the trade-off to open his own coffee bar in 1986 instead of staying at Starbucks as the manager of retail sales and marketing. A bold feat, Schultz was able to replicate success and was offered to buy Starbucks for $4 million. At the time of the acquisition, many investors, including the former Starbucks owners, would not expect that the American consumer would pay a premium for coffee products. Schultz, after calculating the opportunity cost, was convinced that Starbucks would become a large coffee chain not only in the United States but internationally too. Reflecting this approach, Schultz’s trade-off worked. Starbucks, according to our book has revenue exceeding $13 billion and nearly 200,000 employees. The company has also expanded to 40 countries with 17,000 stores (Hill et al., 2015).

The current ratio shows the short-term debt-paying ability of the company also known as liquidity ratio. Components of the current ratio are current assets and current liabilities. To find the current ratio, divide current assets by current liabilities. For example if a current ratio was 2:1, then that company would be able to pay off its short term debt easily. But you should also look at the types of debt the company has because some assets might be larger. For the current ratio a rule of thumb is the ratio should be around 2:1. The company wants to at least make sure that the value of the current assets covers at least the amount of the short-term obligations. In 2013 the current ratio is 1.75 and in 2014 the current ratio is 1.8. This is showing a favorable

The current ratio measures a company’s ability to pay short-term and long-term obligations. This number is found by taking a company’s current assets and dividing it by current liabilities. Below are Walmart, Inc.’s and Costco Wholesale Corporation’s current ratio for the 2015 and 2016 fiscal year end. The industry average is also included for comparison.

starbucks Corp., an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, has expanded rapidly since its opening in 1971. These outrageous success was due to its well-developed strategy vision which lay out the company's strategic course in developing and strengthening its business. Starbucks is a global corporation that sells authentic coffee in 30 countries, reporting revenues of nearly $5.1 billion in 2006. The main goal of Starbucks is to embrace diversity by applying the highest standards of excellence. Starbucks strives to perfect the relationship with the working class by making the service as fast as possible because they believe that every customer has their own personal rate. One

Liquidity ratios measure how well a company is able to meet its short term obligations without relying on selling inventory (David, Fred). Starbucks three main components in these current categories are cash, inventory and accrued liabilities. The current ratio indicates that if Starbucks needed to liquidate they would be able to cover their current liabilities. They would be unable to meet their outside obligations without selling off inventory to

2) Garthwiate, Craig; Busse, Meghan; Brown, Jennifer; Merkley, Greg “Starbucks: A Story of Growth” Harvard Business Publishing, July 2012.

The first of the liquidity ratios is the current ratio. The current ratio is the number of times that current assets exceed current liabilities. It is calculated by dividing the company’s current assets by their current liabilities. In most circumstances, the higher the current ratio, the better. The ratio is an excellent indication of the company’s ability to pay its short-term debts. A decline in the current ratio could imply that the company is having trouble generate cash, it could also be a result of increases of short-term debt, and/or a decrease in current assets. An improvement in the current ratio implies that the company has an increased ability to pay off current liabilities. As current ratio declines, the overall risk increases, and as it improves, the risk declines. From 2013 to 2014, Coke’s current ratio dropped from 1.13 to 1.02 before rising to 1.24 in the most recent year of 2015. However, compared to Pepsi’s ratio of 1.31, Coke’s current ratio is lower. To increase their ratio to be more competitive with their benchmark, Coke could use long-term borrowing to pay off some of their current liabilities.

In this assignment, a savvy financial analyst researching companies in which to invest a U.S. publically-traded company that would be a good investment was chosen. After a lengthy search, a company that my family is unduly familiar with, Starbucks, was chosen and in the following pages a financial analysis will be described.

The current ratio lets one know what is exactly happening in the business at the present time. The current ratio is defined as current assets such as accounts receivables, inventories any type of work in progress or cash that are divided by the business current liabilities. Business liabilities can consist of many things such as insurance on building, employee insurance these liabilities way heavy on any type of business especially one that is large as Landry’s Restaurant.

In this paper, I will talk about Starbucks Company. I will define the influence of the vision, and mission of the company and primary stakeholders along with their overall success. An examination will be conducted to categorize five forces of struggle and their effect on the corporation. I will carry out a SWOT analysis to determine the opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses. Founded on the SWOT analysis, a technique of opportunities and advantages will be exploited while threats and weaknesses will be diminished. Several types and levels of techniques will be talked over to operate the profitability and competitiveness. I will outline a plan of communication to make approaches known to all investors. Two corporate authorities will be designated to assess the efficiency of the regulating managers. I will also assess the effectiveness of management within the Company and come up with sanctions for upgrading.

Starbucks generates strong cash flows has solid liquidity. The company executes rigorous cost cutting initiatives to improve its bottom-line. However, throughout fiscal 2008, Starbucks continued to experience declining revenue, particularly in US operation. The decline is largely attributed to lower customer traffic.

In general the coffeehouse industry in the United States was experiencing an increase in coffee consumption per capita due to the “Starbucks effect”. At this time Starbucks was operating approximately 20,000 stores in the United States and was living a fast expansion strategy worldwide.

Starbucks first opened its doors in Seattle’s Pike Place Market with the name being coined from that of Moby Dick’s first mate (Schultz & Yang 1999). It has spread its shops across North America, all over Europe, the Middle East, Latin America as well as the Pacific Rim with an estimated 35 million customer weekly (Michelli, 2008). With tremendous growth from a small time coffee shop, the company has matured to an international icon that today it is one of the world’s leading retailer, roaster and brand specialty coffee (Story, 1971). The company offers whole bean coffees, espresso beverages, and confectionery and bakery items.

Current ratio of Company X and Y is 1.80, and 2.55 respectively. This ratio presents the proportion of current assets to current liabilities. This ratio provided a measure of degree to which current assets cover current liabilities. Since both companies have excess of current assets over their current liabilities, they met basic requirement of safety margin against uncertainty in realization of current assets and funds flows. Generally, it is suggested that a firm should have neither a very high ratio nor a very low ratio. Very high ratio implies heavy investments in current assets reflecting under utilization of the resources. A very low ratio endangers the business in to risks of not being able to pay short term requirements. Normally, it is advocated to have the current ratio as 2:1 (Baker and Powell, 2009).