The Channels Of Starbucks Coffee Company

As the world’s number one specialty coffee retailer, Starbucks sells coffee drinks, food items, coffee beans, and coffee-related accessories and equipment. In addition, Starbucks sells whole-bean coffees through a specialty sales group and grocery stores. Starbucks has grown beyond coffee into related businesses such as coffee-flavoured ice cream and ready-to-drink coffee beverages. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Starbucks business strategy, customer value proposition, company’s operations and the risks to financial results and reporting in the short term.

Starbucks Corporation is a coffeehouse chain that began in Seattle in 1971. Since that time, Starbucks operations have grown; there are now over 22,000 retail stores throughout 67 countries. Starbucks strives to offer customers a comfortable, “home-like” environment while remaining conscious of ethical behaviors and social responsibility. It can be argued that Starbucks dominates the coffeehouse market, and much of this may be due to a grand strategy with a focus on growth. Using a growth strategy, Starbucks attempts to increase its market share and revenues by increasing the number of its stores and the number of locations it serves. So far, Starbucks has enjoyed much success with this strategy.

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.

Starbucks is no doubt a phenomenon in the United States, but the brand wants to expand globally. Opening chains in various global locations such as Japan, Vienna, England; Starbucks wants to reach out to the coffee loving fans everywhere. Nevertheless opening chains globally is not that simple. There are many uncontrollable factors Starbucks need to focus on to make sure they are making profit as well has abiding by the country’s laws and regulations. Going global takes a lot of market research to make sure that the brand will be successful even with uncontrollable factors. Controllable factors can be tailored to fit the needs of each country. Starbucks has to find the happy medium so they don’t lose their identity overseas.

Starbucks is a corporation well known for roasting, marketing and retailing of crafted quality beverage that is based on coffee. Starbucks started its operations in Seattle’s Pike place market with Howard Schultz helping in its marketing and retailing efforts. The company is extremely successful and focused on the development of positive company-customer relationships. Starbucks uses company-customer relationships and a customer-centered approach as its key business strategy. The customer-centered approach allows the company to maintain its current position in the market.

This drives the demand of the product , shifting the demand curve to right. Buyers expectation strongly affects the consumption . Expectation of technology for a consumer , wifi, card, mobile , e-commerce adds up to the demand. With increase in technology by the company the demand increases leading the demand curve to move to right. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2012/05/24/chief-digital-officer-for-starbucks-on-technology-change-and-community/)

Starbucks Corporation is an American coffeehouse chain founded in 1971 starting out as only one store retailing in whole bean, tea, and ground coffee in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington (Starbucks Company Profile, 2016). Starbucks comprises four operating segments along other non-reportable operating segments. The operating segments include Americas, China Pacific, EMEA, and Channel Development (Starbucks Company, 2016).

The company competes with other sellers, like Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds, in the coffee market, but ultimately is overwhelmingly dominant. In the monopoly, Starbucks has had to create a unique identity and brand image for itself in order to succeed amongst competitors. Starbucks has been able to successfully differentiate itself from its competition by priding itself in quality assurance to its customers as well as its distinctive brand marketing strategy, which includes a large number of stores and little to no paid advertising; the company feels their high quality products speak for themselves and a high presence of storefronts allows customers to purchase their products at their own

Starbucks was founded in 1971 as a fine coffee retailer by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegal. Howard Schutz, CEO, acquired Starbucks in 1987. It has established itself as a neighborhood coffee house and a social gathering place for the community. Starbucks’ mission statement is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time (Jurevucius, 2013)

In making the decision to close a number of outlets in the United States, there were several factors that played into Starbucks' decision. These included the performance of the stores in question, and the company's expectations for the state of the US economy going forward. The long term plan for the company also played a significant role in the downsizing that the company went through.

Starbucks organizational structure has been rearranged to better accommodate customer satisfaction. Schultz, CEO of Starbucks announced the expansion of their matrix organization structure. They will operate under four U.S. divisions: Western/Pacific, Southeast/Plains, Northeast/Atlantic and Northwest/Mountain (Schultz, 2008). There are some major advantages for this kind of organizational structure which include maximized communication channels. Once the appropriate adjustments are made, Schultz believes that Starbucks will be able to develop products specifically to market appeal. The continual support in the Starbucks organizational structure support functions operating being their own department and supporting shared visions and goals

Starbucks has been selected for this research paper, because this company has several issues regardless of the success of the company at the current time. Much of the success of this company lies in their clear marketing strategies, as well as, introducing a new product into the U.S. coffee drinking market at the right time, and staying up-to-date with trends and customer preferences. The challenge for the company now is the lack of customer service improvement. Barriers to communication play a significant role in this challenge. Also, the company was accused in green washing that makes its customers incredulous to the company. Some recommendations how to handle customer complaints effectively and improve the current situation in the company will be proposed.

Successful companies are companies that have a plan for where they are going, and where they want to be in the future. To successfully create this plan, companies need to examine themselves, along with their competitors, to see what areas need to be strengthened and what can be utilized to do so. Some of the main components of this analyzation are identifying what the major issues in the companies that are threats or are causing that weakness. They then need to create long term objectives, and quantify how to accomplish them-- whether they be financial or strategic. Starbucks as a company has three key issues: increased competition from new and/or expanding restaurants and coffee shops, they are less popular overseas, and there are many consumers who boycott Starbucks because it is such a mainstream prevalent brand.

Starbucks mission is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit- one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.”

7. SHERYL SANDBERG, 39, has served as the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Inc., an online social utility company, since March 2008. From 2001 to March 2008, Ms. Sandberg was the Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations for Google Inc., an Internet search engine company.