Starbucks Case Study

Background information: Starbucks is one of the biggest chains of cafés on the planet with 22,551 stores in 66 nations and domains, incorporating 12,739 in the United States, 1,868 in China, 1,395 in Canada, 1,117 in Japan and 830 in the United Kingdom. It was established 44 years ago – March 30, 1971 in Seattle, Washington, United States by three partners Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, Gordon Bowker. The company entered global market after 25 years operations in domestic market in 1996 by opening store in Tokyo, Japan. Starbucks currently, serves hot, cold beverages and non-coffee items – sandwiches, deserts and CDs with their creation history all over the world. According to Wikipedia, in 2014, Company had more than 191,000 employees globally and theyt made revenue of $16,447 billion with 13 % net income.

Several key success factors exist for Starbucks, a leader in the coffee industry. They include

When Howard Schultz first became part of the company he realized that one key problem Starbucks was having was that first-time consumers often felt uneasy about their absence of knowledge about high-quality coffee. An additional problem was that the employees came off as arrogant and unapproachable. He then worked with employees to teach them about friendly customer service and created a pamphlet to teach new customers about coffee. He also began to offer part-time employees health insurance and a stock option plan for all employees, because he believed that if a company treated their employees well, then they would in turn treat their consumers well. The additional features that Starbucks offers are fireplaces, couches, music, Wi-Fi access, ability to use paid sites and services like Wall Street Journal’s site, exclusive content and previews, free downloads, local community news, and activities.

Starbucks itself already has an existing international market, but observations and findings have shown that the international market is clouded by Starbucks’ home market in America.

There are many opportunities for Starbucks to succeed in their industry. These opportunities include expanding of product offerings, entering foreign markets, and brand awareness. In expanding of product offerings, we have seen Starbucks

As is quoted in the book “Starbucks seems to have a handle on how to gain and maintain employee loyalty.” I also like the way Starbucks treats its customers, you feel there as you are in a friendly environment. Schultz believes that he “has created a third place between home and work where people can go to get their own personal time out or relax with friends.“ (Peter & Olson, pg. 32) I think that what Schultz believes is very true and we can see this by the numbers of how much this store has expanded and how much popularity it has all over the world. The only thing that I don’t like about Starbucks is the price of coffee; compared with other stores here in Greece it has higher prices. So, the information I received for Starbucks had a very strong influence on my affect for the coffee shops and especially for Starbucks.

a) The nature of Starbucks’ business is to generate income based on operating activities. When referencing the Statement of Cash Flows and looking at their operating activities, you can see that Starbucks generates $2,908.3M in net cash provided by operating activities. Investment is a significant item in this statement as well. The company spent $785.9M in investments in the year ending September 29th, 2013. Strong investment activities show that Starbucks is investing through buying and selling (Sales, maturities, and calls of investments $1,040.2M) and using their spare cash to invigorate future growth and fund future obligations.

However, are there more benefits than disadvantages in reality? In reality, the company is wondering whether Starbuck would be able to retain the same quality of their human resources. Main challenge for Starbucks Coffee nowadays is to ensure that the rapid growth of the company would not change their financial and mental “health”, as its starting to get problematic for them to maintain the same generous policies and high human resources costs. Main reason for that is because is it difficult to check on each store, and ensure that the company there is working in high-standards.

The most important success factor is customer loyalty because money comes from the customers. The main goal of Starbucks is to get and keep customers by giving them what they need. By then, keeping in touch with customers and have a social interaction with them could develop a customer loyalty that could keep competitors away. Starbucks also give customers a great environment inside the coffeehouse so they could stay there long as they bond with their friends or doing their assignment. Aside from the great coffee that Starbucks offers they also have friendly staff that accommodate you well and give some free taste on their newly made coffee. This will keep customer from coming back in the

Starbucks had ranked the top of the coffee house chains by number of stores worldwide in 2013 (Statista, 2014). As a result, the “Starbucks on Every Corner” strategy is an extreme success and this had proved that even though there are stores every corner except for 48 Sub-Saharan African countries, Central Asian and Eastern European, Starbucks Corporation is having a good operating and maintaining company skills (Statista, 2014). For instance, if the international sales department and coffee production department do not work in collaboration between each other, Starbucks who own so many stores worldwide would definitely suffer as a whole

Starbucks dates back from 1971 and is based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded by Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl and it

The key issues facing this firm were its attempts at massive expansion and creating new value innovation. The need to expand could cause the company to become over exposed and risk its ability to change. New players in the field such as McDonalds pose a new potential threat of competition, though it is unclear if they share the same market. What can Starbucks do to compete with the competition? There are alternative actions Starbucks can take to secure its competitive advantage it has upheld for so long. The one item that truly

In this report, the effects of external environment on Starbucks and their responses will be evaluated. Firstly, the key outside factors will be analyzed, with details about what company should consider primarily, which includes four in six PESTLE factors: Political, Economic, Legal and Socio-cultural factors. Each factor contains important elements that affect directly to company’s operation. Using this analysis, Starbucks can have an overview about current outside environment and determine what operational adjustment should be made to enhance company’s performances.

As we mentioned previously starbucks had invested in their employess so they are well trained , thus they have to utilize knowledgeable employee to improve their operations.

Today, Starbucks is a well-established and successful phenomenon every year that improves its performances without giving any sign of slowing down. It is important at this point to try to understand what are the "current" factors of its ongoing development, which we can summarize in some key