Starbucks Corporation

Starbucks is dominant coffee brand in North America, which also is well-known worldwide. Established in 1971 as coffee shop oriented to a niche of coffee purists, in late 1980’s it turned to be a constantly growing chain of stores that sold whole-beans and premium-priced coffee to mostly affluent, well-educated customers. In years 1992-2002 company was showing at least 5% annual growth. And by 2002 Starbucks was serving already 20M customers in 5886 stores (both operated and licensed) around the globe, had $3.3 billion net revenues and was opening 3 new stores a day in average.

Starbucks has made a success offering the consumers something different than nice store bought brands of coffee. Howard Schultz acquired Starbucks in 1987 he wanted to copy the idea of espresso bars that he saw on his visit to Milan. His idea was to provide the consumer a place where they could relax and socialize with coworkers or friends that he called the third place. (Ferrell & Hartline, 2013).

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:

When Howard Schultz first experienced Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice he was immediately smitten by the operations and business culture, and actively pursued a job with them. At that time, Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice was an 11 year old coffee shop with six stores in Seattle specializing in high-quality coffee beans. Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice desired to bring fine coffee to their customers, so to that end, they imported quality coffee beans, roasted them to their own exacting specifications and sold the beans and high-end coffeemakers to their customers, so customers could make superb coffee at home. The only coffee brewed onsite was the sampling of a roast, in order for a customer to determine if they wanted to buy that

In 1971, Starbucks started as a small coffee shop which targeted a specialized market of coffee purists. Howard Schultz, who later owned the company and initiated the high growth period, joined Starbucks’ marketing team in 1982. Main concept of Schultz marketing strategy was too make Starbucks “America’s third place” considering home and work the two other places where Americans spend most of their time. In 1992, Schultz acquired Starbucks and made an initial public offering. Despite Wall Street’s doubts about the IPO, $25 million was raised by Starbucks.

Starbucks today is widely recognized as the megabrand for coffee, and there clearly are no close competitors that have its international recognition and scope. Starbucks has grown to employ over “160,000 people and generates about 13.6 billion dollars annually” (Forbes). Much of Starbuck’s success is attributed to a man with a clear vision and drive: Howard Schultz. Howard Schultz’s passion for delivering quality coffee along with a positive café experience has given him the motivational determination to demonstrate exceptional leadership traits. This paper will give a brief overview of the history of Starbucks, and will then investigate the changes that were made after Schultz stepped in. Furthermore, problems that

Why did Schultz think he could successfully import the Italian coffee bar concept to the United States?

Eventually in 1984, the owners of Starbucks, purchased Peet 's. Even though the price of coffee was decreasing, by 1986 the company operated six stores in Seattle and had really just began to sell espresso coffee (Starbucks Timeline, 2016). A year later in 1987, the original owners sold the Starbucks chain to former employee Howard Schultz. The next step for Howard was to rebrand his Il Giornale coffee outlets as Starbucks. Later in the same year,

Starbucks is known as the dominant specialty-coffee brand in North America. Beginning in 1987 when Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman, president and chief executive officer, purchased the single-location coffee-house from the original founders, Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Ziev Siegl, he had a vision to create “a place for conversation and a sense of community. A third place between work and home” (Starbucks, 2015). Starbucks created and continues to offer this “third place” through exceptional customer service and inviting environments that provide an experience that becomes part of the customer’s daily life. In 1992 the company completed its initial public offering and by 2002 Starbucks had rapidly expanded from a local Seattle company to an international corporation with 5,886 retail stores on four continents posting its highest net earnings in its history despite the economic downturn during the 1990s.

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

head marketing and retail stores supervisor. Schultz 's biggest idea for the future of Starbucks

Beyond stores, Starbucks sells its beans to hotels, several airlines and airports. Starbucks sells gourmet coffee, beans as well as gifts and related goods.

By now, most Americans must have heard or be familiar with a chain of coffeehouses, named Starbucks. Established in 1971 as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, Starbucks has expanded rapidly. By successfully adopting Italian coffee culture into a variety of beverages such as brewed coffee, espresso, teas, Frappuccinos and related products such as music CDs, pastries or ice creams, the Seattle-based company has reported USD 7.9 billion in revenue with 22 percent annual growth (Starbucks, 2006) . Operating 13,168 stores in 41 countries, Starbucks has, inarguably, become one of the largest and most recognizable coffeehouses all over the world (Harrison & Enz, 2005). Meanwhile, the company still targets for operating 30,000 stores

In the early 1980s Howard Schultz became interested in the specialized coffee market. He observed that there were only a few small coffee shops around the united states that did not have marketing budgets to expand or that they did not want to expand and were happy with only being a few shops. Howard Schultz noticed that of the coffee shops that were their i.e. Peats coffee house and Starbucks that its customers tended to be loyal and regular and also they would have

In February 2008, Howard Schultz communicated, “in order to reinvigorate our company we must continually analyze and review every part of our company operations. This