Starbucks: Analysis

* Government Stability: the stability of the government, not only in the US but in all of the countries which the company imports from, is an important factor in Starbucks’ performance. The recent US Election may have an impact on Starbucks if the elected administration enforces new taxation and legislation.

Stealing is defined as: “Taking (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.” During my tenure of employment at Starbucks, I took the drinks that Starbucks had trusted me with as a steward of their money and I gave them away for free. This was detrimental to Starbucks as an organization so I could benefit. I learned many lessons through my decisions to give away Starbucks’ resources and Starbucks’ decision to terminate my employment.

Starbucks Corporation, generally known, as Starbucks Coffee is the leading retailer and a brand of world’s forte coffee in the world, with more than 15,000 retail locations in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim, wherever in this world where premium quality coffee is in demand. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world ahead of UK rival Costa Coffee, with 20737 stores in 63 countries and territories, including 11910 in the United States, 1496 in China, 1442 in Canada, 1052 in Japan and 772 in the United Kingdom. The first Starbucks was open in 1970. The name was inspired from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a definitive American novel regarding the 19th century whaling industry. The nautical name matches seamlessly for a store that imports the world’s finest coffees to the cold thirsty people of Seattle. In May 1998, Starbucks have finally successfully entered the European market through its acquirement of 65 Coffee Company stores initially originated from Seattle in the UK. Both companies shared a common culture, focusing on a great commitment to customized coffee, similar company values and a mutual respect.

Like it was with McDonald’s when it first appeared in Sarajevo, there was initial appeal and hype about Starbucks’ appearance in Australia. However, after trying their products, many customers quickly realized that they this ‘unique experience’ that Starbucks promised them, is not much different than the one offered by other cafés, like Gloria Jean’s or Coffee Club. To make things worse, the quality of Starbucks coffee has declined over the years. Therefore, they were harshly criticized by the Australian community, and their coffee was described as ‘watered down product’, ‘gimmicky’ and consisting of ‘buckets of milk’.

Starbucks is known for their Frappuccino’s; unfortunately they are on a downward spiral in sales due to competitors such as McDonalds. In 2008 Starbucks admits to its losses due to their competitors. “Company executives now freely admit that such thinking is largely to blame for the woes that led to Tuesday’s announcement that Starbucks will close 600 U.S. stores and eliminate thousands of jobs. The coffee giant’s missteps have come at a spectacularly bad time, hitting as the economic slump deepens and consumers are seeing their discretionary spending eaten up by rising gas prices and grocery bills (Linn).”

Basically Starbucks faced three major risks at domestic region. On of which was saturated market condition (USA). Fifteen years ago they initially started with 17 coffee shops in Seattle and 5,689 outlets in 28 countries. Now, amazingly 4,247 stores scattered across the United State and Canada. In Seattle there is outlet for every 9,400 people. And the company considers that the upper limit of coffee shop saturation.

When Howard Schultz launched Starbucks, its main targets were the competitors and the customers. Schultz’s brand aimed at gaining dominance in the coffee industry in addition creating a Italian coffee shop feel in the United States (Buchanan & Simmons, 2009). The strategy of Starbucks was based on new products, listening to customers wants and ensure future expansion (Buchanan & Simmons, 2009). In creating convenience for customers, Starbucks created stores almost on top of eachother. They hinged on the idea that, they did not want to lose out on a sale if a line was too long. This action, of placing stores in heavy populated areas, basing need on projected growth of an area caused some decline in sales during economic trouble with the economy. The 2007 recession, failure of subprime mortgages, increased competition from McDonald 's McCafe brand, and Dunkin Doughnuts all led to a decline in sales for Starbucks in the fourth quarter of 2007 (Buchanan & Simmons, 2009). To attempt to regain market share and recover after the

Two CEOs followed Schultz’s tenure and Jim Donald, the second one, put increasing the number of stores and store efficiencies as his strategy above customer service driving the business. “Complaints surfaced that Starbucks felt more like a fast-food restaurant than a coffeehouse.” (New York Times ~ Business Day, 2012) This pursuit, along with the Great Recession, created havoc in Starbucks finances, driving stock price “from a high of $40 (5/1/2006) to $8 (11/17/2008).” (Living Economics) At that point, the Board ousted Jim Donald and asked Schultz to come back as CEO and “lead a major restructuring and revitalization initiative.” (Thompson & Shah, 2010)

Accounting helps to measure an organizations activities, process data into reports, and translate the results to decision makers. Financial statements and reports help to present the company to the public in financial terms. The information on these data statements can used to evaluate the company through vertical and horizontal analysis. Vertical analysis is the proportional analysis of a financial statement. Normally, vertical analysis is done with a financial statement over a period of time. When using vertical analysis, a line item on a financial statement is listed as a percentage of another item (Harrison, 2015). A horizontal analysis is the comparison of information or ratios over a series of reporting periods. Horizontal analysis helps investors and analysts to control how a company has grown over time. Analysts and investors could use horizontal analysis to compare a company's growth rates in relation to its competitors and industry.

Since January 2008, Starbucks has taken steps to address the deterioration in the US retail environment revitalize its global support structure. These steps have been designed to structure the company’s business for long-term profitable growth. Because of the continued weak economy and decreased customer traffic, as well as the cost associated with the store closures and other actions in its transformation strategy, the company’s fiscal 2008 results were impacted negatively in the following ways:

Starbucks’ shares have grown more than 1500% over the past decade. Financially, it has been an oak tree in an ever changing economy with customers that have ever changing demands. However, there has been increased concern for the financial viability of the coffee shop a recently announced plan to close down over 600 stores that were said to be underperforming domestically. That means that more than 1,000 jobs will be eliminated. As scary as that is on the local front to top management, the executive staff feels that it is the only way to recover from it’s shocking $108.7M loss for the 2nd quarter this fiscal year.

Starbucks would then open up stores in trendier areas of a country, most likely geared toward a youthful image. In addition to these strategies Starbucks decided not to compromise on its basic principles of offering quality coffee of similar origins, and offering a non-smoking environment across the globe (Starbucks International Operations 5).

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 has a reputation for new product development and creativity. But new ideas can not come so often and even if they do they may not be on target. Moreover, almost the ¾ of their shops are located in the U.S. which means they are depended too much on one country. They need to spread into another group of countries in order to spread the business risk. Also organization is dependant on a main competitive advantage, the retail of coffee. This could make them slow to diversify into other sectors should the need arise.

that people needed another place, a place where they could go to relax and enjoy others, or just