Howard Schultz : Business Insider Essay

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).

Starbucks was bought out by current CEO Howard Schultz in 1987. Since then, Andrew Harrer (2012) reports the company has grown to operate over “17,244 stores worldwide” (para. 1). Fortune (n.d.) reports in its yearly 100 Best Companies to Work for that Starbucks employs “some 95,000 employees”. From only a handful of stores in 1987 to a billion dollar franchise today, the success of Starbucks is due in great deal to their corporate culture, specifically how employees, or as Starbucks calls them, partners are treated. Joseph Michelli (2007) echoes this sentiment, “A great cup of coffee is only part of the Starbucks success equation” (p. 767).

Starbucks has strong leaders on the management team. Managers have to be able to delegate responsibility to his or her employees in order to keep the company running successfully and keeping Starbucks on the top of the coffee store market. The managers have learned how to bring out the best in each employee and get them to work to the best of his or her ability. Doing this has led to Starbucks employees being happy and doing the best job for themselves and the company.

The extraordinary success Starbucks experienced during the early 1990s resulted from Howard Schultz’s passion and vision to create a coffee culture in the United States similar to the coffee culture he experienced while traveling to Italy. Schultz’s vision of the Starbucks brand evolved around providing a quality product while delivering exceptional customer service in an inviting atmosphere. Starbucks’ success can be attributable to the following factors:

First of all, Howard Schultz had a clear vision about his company. It is important for a great leader to have a clear vision about what to achieve. The emphasis on importance of employees is the outstanding point in his vision. This is why Starbucks has been investing in their

Starbucks is a multinational firm that mainly sells roasted specialty coffee in its established retail stores. With headquarters in United States, Starbucks also operates in more than 50 countries across the world. The company was established in 1971 and has expanded its operations within the US borders consistently since then (Seaford & Brooks, 2012). One of the most significant drivers for the good performance of the entity prior to 21st century was good reputation as an organization that was socially responsible and willingness to cater for the interest of its stakeholders. Remarkably, the current status of Starbucks has been attained mainly through the support of its hardworking and committed employees. For the first three decades,

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

From the original strategic vision of offering a welcoming experience for customers, being part of their community, and becoming a warm “third place” that is part of their lives everyday and that it can provide a superior cup of coffee, Howard Schultz –Starbucks’s CEO had evolved

“To inspire and nurture the human spirit one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” (Starbucks, 2017). In 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company (SBUX) was founded by three students; Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowler in Seattle, Washington (Orta, Feigenblatt, Lemus and Rivero, 2015). The goal has been to serve the best coffee with delicious flavors of coffee beans, treating employees as partners, and serving an inviting atmosphere to their customers. The new owner, Howard Schultz generated a culture of high values where people are treated like family. He has worked to produce a modernized structure where employees can grow by working in a teamwork environment. The key to his success has been communication in which it

Howard Schultz’s idea with Starbucks in the mid 1980’s was to create a chain of coffeehouses with a product differentiation of specialty “live coffee”, service or customer intimacy with an “experience”, and an atmosphere of a “third place” to add to their work and home alternatives. The original stores sold whole beans and premium-priced coffee beverages by the cup and catered primarily to affluent, well educated, white-collar patrons (skewed female) between the ages of 25 and 44. By 2002, there were over 5,000 stores around the globe. The company spent minimal dollars on advertising to promote a brand concept. Enforced exacting coffee standards by controlling the supply chain as much as possible,

When looking at the definition of Organizational Culture from the reading, the two words, “shared meaning”, jumped off the page at me. Schultz’s aim was to create meaning from top to bottom; from suppliers, to employees, to the end target, customers. The company paid more than fair value to producers, which is not only socially responsible,

Howard Schultz had the perfect plan to create a successful coffee company. He got people to pay more for a premium coffee then to just go to a local coffee shop and pay a lot less for a cheaper coffee. He did this by creating an experience around purchasing your coffee. Starbucks focused on creating relationships with its customers while providing one of the best premium coffees out there. Also being able to customize your own drink was a big success in getting people to purchase the product. A high quality coffee was one key component to Starbucks value proposition. Another was service and

In order to create an effective dialogue about organizational culture and its facets, so that learning and change can later be implement if necessary, culture must first be defined in some appreciable means. For the purpose of this analysis, organizational culture will refer to “a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations” (Robbins & Judge, 1993).

Moreover, Schultz organized an experienced corporate team composed of leaders from several successful companies, such as Nike, Deloitte, and Macy’s, to help manage the company and make sure Starbucks continuously aligned with its proposed values. Yet, Schultz did not just strive for an excellent corporate management team; he also wanted his front line workers to be the best. Therefore, he invested more money in training his employees than marketing the brand.

The CEO (Chief Executive Officer), Howard Schultz pointed that the main reason from the decline of “Starbucks Experience” was that the number of Starbucks shops increased sharply from only 1,000 to 13,000 within ten years. Other people considered their brand has been commercialized, and the customers hadn’t had enough enthusiasms to appreciate every moment of their coffee any longer. He suggested that Starbucks should re-find its origin. Nevertheless, his advice apparently was opposite to the