Starbucks : The World 's Leading Coffeehouse Chain Essay

As Starbucks moves into new markets all over the world, it continues to build its brand through the delivery of the Starbucks Experience. "Our success at every market that we have entered into reiterates our commitment to become a great, enduring company with the most recognized and respected brand in the world, known for inspiring and nurturing the human spirit. Our Mission: to be a global company, making a difference in peoples ' lives by leveraging our brand and the coffee experience to foster human connections." (www.starbucks.com)Starbucks ' development strategy adapts to different markets addressing local needs and requirements. Starbucks currently uses three business strategies: joint ventures, licenses, and company-owned operations.

An international coffeehouse franchise named Starbucks was founded in Seattle in 1971. It is the world’s largest coffeehouse and coffee retail chain, with approximately eleven thousand stores in the United States and more than twenty thousand stores worldwide in sixty-five countries ("Annual Reports). In 1981, Howard Schultz was introduced to Starbucks and had an immediate attraction to the company that drew him in for years to come. Schultz traveled to Italy in 1983, and the Italian coffee bars he frequented inspired him to develop a vision that would bring the Italian coffeehouse tradition to the United States. With the aid of local investors, Schultz purchased Starbucks in 1987. After the purchase, Starbucks opened its first location outside of Seattle.1 When Starbucks went public in 1992, the chain had grown to 165 stores across the country. Starbucks grew into 17,000 stores in 55 countries in 20 years ("Annual Reports"). The company has publicly stated that it intends to expand its brand and social influence into the realm of pop culture and to rival McDonald’s in level of global reach and economic power (Garcia, "Starbucks"). Starbucks expanded by entering into a business deal with Barnes and Noble. The goal was to sell Starbucks coffee in bookstores where people came to spend quality time reading books. Furthermore, they decided to expand the business concept out of the United States by launching over 200 new store locations. As soon as the concept was introduced

Starbucks Corporation first started in 1971 by Gordon Bowker, Jerry Balswin, and Zen Siegl. Starbucks then went public in June 1992. The first coffee shop was located in Seattle. In addition to selling high quality coffee beans, Starbucks offers teas, hot chocolate, an assortment of specialty coffee drinks, merchandise and a limited menu selection of food items. One of Starbucks’ biggest competitors is Dunkin’ Donuts. All Starbucks stores offer their customers a relaxing and clean atmosphere to enjoy their coffee as well as free Wi-Fi. In 2014 Starbucks had 21,366 stores worldwide, which is an increase of 1,599 stores from the previous year. Starbucks has prime locations in heavily occupied areas. Being located in high populated areas gives them an advantage in the market. Starbucks’ ability to obtain prime locations allows them to have an upper-hand on their competitors in the coffee industry. The Starbucks Corporation has developed buyer power over the years. This allows them to keep costs down because now they have lasting relationships with suppliers, growers, and exporters. Having these relationships help protect Starbucks from sudden price jumps.

“Brewing Innovation,” an article by Shezray Husain, Feroz Khan, and Waqas Mirza in 2014 for London Business School, focuses on the history and outlook of a popular chain coffee shop, Starbucks. By discussing a brief history of the café brand and its rise and fall through the economic crisis of 2008, it was clear that the company managed so proficiently due to strategic moves made by leadership. The article explored how the company centered it focus on its consumers and building itself a priority spot in the community by utilizing customer opinions and social media. In fact, by doing so, the corporation not only survive the 2008 economic downfall, but thrived to become of the innovative leaders of the 21st century (Lemus, Feingenblatt, Orta, Rivero, 2015.)

After many years in the coffee industry, Starbucks is well on their way to achieving their vision, “a place that offers interesting coffee-related drinks in a theatrical atmosphere, pivoted around the espresso machine and become most recognized and respected brand of coffee in the world.” However, in order to maintain their position as the leader in the specialty coffee industry several obstacles have been identified. This report identifies three major issues in relation to financing, sales, and expenses and provides the most optimal strategy to surmount each issue.

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.

Starbucks was born in 1971 as a small coffee shop. With the management of Howard Schultz, Starbucks turned into a business legend and built a kingdom of coffee. It was dominate specialty-coffee brand in North America. By mid-2002, the company was serving 20 million unique consumers in more than 5000 stores all over the world. It developed at a very high speed. The gross profit of the company increased from 730.2 million to 1938.9 million in about 5 years (1998-2002). Its retail business expansion was also amazing. In 1998 there were 1755 Starbucks’ stores in North America while the numbers increased to 4574 in 2002. It was also true of its international expansion. There were only 131 stores in 1998. But in 2002

It seemed to me that Starbucks had become a craze overnight. All of a sudden, everywhere I turned someone was carrying a cup embellished with the famed green siren. The first Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington in 1971 as a small store that served mostly coffee and tea. In the year 2000, the company had grown to more than 3,000 cafés. By 2014, the company had more than 20,000 stores open within 67 countries worldwide. In the United States, not only can you buy Starbucks products from local store or gas stations, but in some places, there are Starbucks cafes as close as across the street from one another. It is impossible to ignore the extraordinary success of the Starbucks Coffee Company. It has become a part of modern pop culture with frequent references in television, movies, and especially in social media. Although there is a strong stereotypical image of what an average Starbucks customer looks and behaves like, the community of people who visit the café is very diverse.

Starbucks have one vision from day one to present, which is to be the premier provider for the world’s finest coffee. In doing so they also achieved being one of the most recognized brand and maintained principles and values form the first step of planting the coffee seed to handing a cup of coffee to their customers. Starbucks are very fond to their employee who they call their partners. They focus a lot on the happiness of their partners since they believe that happy employees will create a better environment and experience for the customers. They strive to be the most appreciated and positively graded coffee brands by all the different class levels of customers and employees around the world.

Like Microsoft, Starbuck is keeping up with their customer responsiveness. Because of the flexibility of the size and format of its stores, Starbucks can be found in a variety of settings, including retail centers, university campuses, office buildings, airport terminals and supermarket. Starbucks opened in US with over 5,000 locations in 22 international markets. For its non-pedestrian customers, Starbucks has increased its focus on drive-thru retail stores. New objectives of the organization could be to scale back the retail areas of the store, and gain a new focus on environmental issues. They have established specialty operations, joint ventures, internet cafes and shopping, and global expansion. Part of their vision and mission is concentrates on how to treat people including their employees, diversity, customer satisfaction, community contributions, and sustaining a profit.

Starbucks is part of a global empire that is continuously growing and which offers a new institution of business thinking. Their way of thinking positioned them on a unique level by the way of which they conduct their business. They incorporated fresh new thinking into strategic, tactical, and operational planning. The company developed a structure that encompassed both horizontal and vertical growth, with control mechanisms set in place. Even with setting such a high standard of business, there are many internal and external factors which can impact the four functions of management of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Today, Coffee may be a large international business employing over 20 million individuals. This commodity ranks second solely to crude oil in terms of greenbacks listed worldwide. With over 400 billion cups consumed per annum, coffee is world’s preferred drink. within the U.S. sales of premium specialty coffees have reached the multibillion-dollar level and increasing considerably on an annual basis.

Starbucks Corporation, founded in 1971 in Seattle, Washington, is the leading retailer of premier coffee beverages and related foods and merchandise, around the world. Its annual sales are over $6 billion, with a profit over $400 million. Starbucks had about 182,000 employees across 62 countries, with 19,767 locations. Many of their location are retail stores or located in airports and shopping centers. The average Starbucks consumer visits the store 18 times a month; 10% visit twice a day. Their products include high-quality/ premium priced coffees, teas, a variety of healthy food and beverages. By providing their customers with a relaxing atmosphere, creating signature drinks and providing environmental safe products, they

Starbucks is a very famous company around the world. Many people like to drink a hot coffee in the morning before work, especially when it is raining outside or in cold weather. Every customer is very important for Starbucks. The company lives by its mission statement “Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time.” One can find stores of this company in many countries and figure out that these coffee shops are very popular and recognizable.

The Starbucks Corporation is the largest coffeehouse worldwide and has more than 16,858 stores in 50 countries, including 11,000 in the United States alone (The McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999). The company’s products include drip brewed coffee, espresso’s, cappuccino beverages, cold drinks, hot drinks, smoothies, tea, coffee beans, salads, sandwiches, snacks, pastries, ice cream, and Starbucks merchandise such as mugs and tumblers (The McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999). The company sells premade coffee and started the coffee bar in which they are known for today. The coffeehouse gives customers a quiet environment to drink coffee, read a book or browse the Internet using Wi-Fi connection the company has available consumers (The McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999).