Starbucks Case Study

2. Starbucks enjoyed strong financial performance in 2011. The company did not explicitly attribute this, but with an 8% rise in same store sales it seems that either the consumer market bounced back, or Starbucks made changes that attracted more consumers. The company feels that it offered better products and a better experience at its stores. The company also credited operating efficiencies and tight control of spending for improved profits. In addition, the company continued its global expansion, which improved the top line, and used the economies of scale it generated as part of its cost control program.

The succeeding content of this executive summary provides an analysis on Starbucks’ Corporation profit using the company’s most three most recent annual reports. Team B uses “the information contained in the company’s balance sheet and income statement noting that annual reporting period and fiscal year mean year-end numbers. Additionally, included is the company history, audit for the company, stock exchange listing, cash and cash equivalents at the end of its 2 most annual reporting periods. Moreover, total current assets, largest current assets, company’s total assets at the end of its 2 most recent annual reporting years. Furthermore, accounts payable,

The determinants of Starbucks profitability over time are variable costs and fixed costs. “A variable cost is a cost that change in direct proportion to a change in the level of activity (dict). Variable costs for Starbucks would include labor, coffee beans, dairy, and plastic products. A fixed cost is indirect costs of business expenses that remain unchanged (dict). Fixed costs for Starbucks include rent, taxes, and insurance as well as advertising. In the figure below (fig 1) we have Starbucks financial data in millions for the year of 2015. This includes their operating expenses, net revenues, such as company-operated stores, licensed stores, CPG, food service. It also includes their total net revenues and their balance sheet. As we can see “Operating costs dropped in the fiscal year

Starbucks is a great company that is constantly growing and looking for other ventures to invest. In fact, they have been able to do so due to their net working capital being very favorable. This is determined by finding the difference between their current assets and current liabilities. All of Starbucks assets that include cash, accounts receivables, and inventories minus both current and long-term liabilities have proven to create a profitable net working capital. They have accomplished this by maintain the appropriate balance between inventories, accounts receivables, cash, and other revenues. Most importantly, they have managed to remain operational after paying off current assets.

Starbucks financial statements were analyzed for the fiscal year ended September 27, 2015. Like all public companies, annual and quarterly financial statements are required to allow regulators and other interested parties to analyze the financial status and management decision making of the company. This analysis focuses on the results of Starbucks most recent published annual report containing their balance sheets, statement of earnings and cash flows. These statements will be analyzed against the results of one of its competitors, Dunkin Donuts, to investigate how the two companies compare to each other. It was noted that Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts do not have corresponding fiscal year ends. The data therefore is not directly comparable since the reports do not reflect the same time period of data but should provide additional insight. The paper will attempt to provide a brief analysis of Starbucks operations in terms of its liquidity, leverage, activity, profitability and growth ratios used by analysts in the industry.

1. In the beginning, how was Starbucks different from other coffee options for coffee drinkers in the United States? What activities and assets did Starbucks leverage to differentiate itself from competitors?

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.

Starbucks’ Total fixed assets increased from $3,200.5 billion in 2013 to $3,519 billion in 2014. This was a 9.95% increase. As a percentage of total assets on the balance sheet, fixed assets increased from 27.79% to 32.73% (Starbucks,

Starbucks has a debit/equity ratio of .4, quite low compared to the industry average. This is a good thing because it means that Starbucks is not putting a lot of emphasis on financing its growth with debt. The debt/equity ratio indicates how much debt is used to finance its assets relative to the amount of value presented in the shareholders’ equity. Starbucks has a return on assets ratio of 23.8 that is well above the industry average. Return on assets shows how

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.

I've chosen the Starbucks Corporation on which to do my case assignment for the session. I first became interested in Starbucks while working on a paper for a previous marketing class. I became intrigued at the entrepreneurial spirit that such a large corporation had managed to maintain throughout its massive expansion. Starbucks corporation, unlike many of its now-defunct rivals, has done an outstanding job since its meager beginnings in 1970 with the execution of its strategic process; resulting in it currently owning 40% of the specialty coffee market and boosting annual sales exceeding $7 billion according to Burt Helm. Historic successes and recent turmoil within the company, including a near 40% decline in 2007 in profits (Sullivan

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.

The context change in form that Starbucks found itself competing with smaller chains that resembled its former pre-expansion model with competitors focusing in creating symbolic-expressive value and fast food restaurants that had started to offer specialty coffee with more aggressive advertisement at a lower cost. The competitive context changed for Starbucks because it’s focus in mass distribution channels and its retail footprint strategy stated its product within a standard performance product value; this affected the value perception of the product.

We analyzed Starbucks’ past three years’ financial statements and annual reports. The causes of material changes and effects have been found and can provide us with reasonable explanations. Based on these analyses and along with Management Discussion, we attained a trend for key financial measurements of Starbucks. The trend analyses can definitely support our forecasted data, which is the inputs of valuation models, in a quantitative manner.

The horizontal analysis in the balance sheet reports that the amount and percentages from 2015 to 2016 increased in all but two assets. The cash and cash equivalents increased by 39%, total currents assets increased by $789.50 or 20%, and property, plant and equipment, net increased from $4,088.30 to $4,533.80, an increment of 11%. This indicates that Starbucks improved its ability to collect from its customers, while also expanding across the