Standardization of Products in the International Marketplace Essay

With coffee consumption being transformed into a habit, with active market growth, with Starbucks being a North America market leader the distance between company and its competitors was reduced.

Starbucks has created a competitive advantage with their product quality by setting themselves apart from their competitors. “The Company has stayed with the upper-scale of the coffee market, competing on comfort rather than convenience, which is the case with its closest competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts” (Mourdoukoutas, Panos). Consumers believe they are receiving a better product and experience when they purchase from a Starbucks as opposed to another large food service company that may sell coffee.

Starbucks lose its uniqueness when baristas used to grind beans throughout the day whenever a new pot of coffee had to be brewed which was at least every eight minutes. Many baristas began to grind all of the day’s coffee beans in the morning and store the rest of the day. Baristas now use push-button machines to make espresso drinks. That stores no longer smell like coffee and that every store looks cookie-cutter.

In the article “Why Starbucks Will Win Over Italy: It Doesn’t Really Sell Coffee”, by Simon Chandler, the author writes about Italian coffee culture and their non acceptance and confusion over Starbucks’ move into Italy with Starbucks Italia. Though the article is written from a supposedly non partisan source, through his nonacademic, selective use of perspective, writing style, and thesis organization, Chandler proves a distinct American bias and support of Starbucks over culture.

Many multinational corporations in the coffee industry have succeeded tremendously such as Starbucks. Each of these corporations has strategies that helped them continue to expand to nations of different cultures, ethnicities, governmental practices, and locations.

The case discusses the strategies adopted by the soft drinks and snack foods major PepsiCo to enter India in the late 1980s. To enter the highly regulated Indian economy, the company had to struggle hard to 'sell' itself to the Indian government. PepsiCo promised to work towards uplifting the rural economy of the terrorism affected north Indian state of Punjab by getting involved in agricultural activities. In addition, it made a host of other promises that made its proposal very attractive to the regulatory authorities. The case also discusses the criticisms leveled against the company, in particular, criticism of its failure to honor

Upon looking at whether or not they should, they must focus on the trends that are developing in these countries. Together with Sazaby (a company known for bringing goods to Japan), Starbucks was able to combine the lifestyles of the Japanese people with the Starbucks product. One important favorable trend that was key in the development of bringing Starbucks to Japan rather than Europe and South America was the fact that Japan has been the third largest coffee consumer in the world and the other regions were more of a risk for Schultz. There are, however, unfavorable trends in bringing Starbucks over such as the fact that the Japanese have not developed the taste for espresso or caffe latte drinks, but they rather prefer instant and ready-to-drink coffee that is offered in vending machines owned by Coca-Cola, which is a highly respected American company in Japan. Another unfavorable trend is the fact that since 1982 there has been a 30% decrease in coffee bars.

The problem was that Starbucks was too ambitious in trying to target all customers, but failed to pay attention to the needs of loyal customers who nourished the brand. According to “Rediscovering of Marketing Segmentation” (Yankelovich & Meer, 2006), a company

Starbucks started to decide on expansion by about the mid 1990 's, when the market became saturated. Market saturation is when a company or firm has covered an area so thoroughly with its presence, that it can no longer experience growth. Because of the market saturation, there were declining sales throughout stores. The company 's original marketing strategy was to blanket a region with new stores. The idea behind this was to reduce a customer 's wait in lines, while also reducing the company 's distribution costs. Revenues from stores were actually beginning to decline because stores were in such close proximity to one another. Although Starbucks was still ahead of their competitors, they were

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 faced various challenges in moving forward. The first of which was brand image and a lack of product differentiation. Customers often saw little or no difference between Starbucks and smaller coffee chains. Also, in a market research study it was found that more that half of customers felt, at an increasing rate from previous years, that Starbucks only cared about profit and expansion.

There are plenty of opportunities which exist for Starbucks in the international markets. In countries with growing economies, such as the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), there are growing upper and middle classes that want to spend money on specialty coffee. Some of these countries are traditionally “Tea Drinkers” that are expanding their tastes to include coffee.

With the development of economic globalization, “fast food” becomes a more and more substantial industry in the business world, which adapts to the pace of people’s life. Each organization spares every effort to stand forward the competition due to the fierce competition. In this article, we focus on the “Starbucks”, a prevailing coffee manufacturer in recent years.

The most challenging decision that a company may face in internationalization is the degree of standardization or adaptation in its operations. The question of standardization or adaptation affects all avenues of a business’ operations, such as R&D, finance, production, organizational structure, procurement, and the marketing mix. Whether a company chooses to standardize or adapt its operations depends on its attitudes toward different cultures. These attitudes are defined by three orientations toward foreign culture: ethnocentric, polycentric, and geocentric.

According to the case, in order to serve their customers with more than mere coffee, Starbucks strived to create their stores with a distinct feel, yet comfortable, relating to the cultural setting of a location. This made Starbucks fit its interior décor to the local architecture, especially in historic buildings. Also, Starbucks was willing (flexible) enough to adapt the food it offered in-store to local taste. For example, in Asia, Starbucks offers curry puffs and meat buns contrary to what is offered in North America or Britain.