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The Organization And Business Strategy Of Starbucks

Decent Essays

Introduction This is a report on the organization and business strategy of Starbucks, a company whose brand recognition is so high that there is hardly a need to add that it sells prepared coffee drinks and products Starbucks coffeehouses. Starbucks serves on the order of 70 million customers each week in over 20,000 stores in 64 countries (Kaplan, 2014). The first coffeehouse bearing the name Starbucks opened in 1971 at the Pike Place Market in Seattle; however, the company as it today effectively began in 1982, when one Howard Schultz was hired as director of retail operations and marketing (Starbucks Company Timeline, 2017). Schultz established the retail sale of ground coffee bearing the Starbucks brand to restaurants and espresso bars. In 1983 he travelled Milan, Italy, where he was impressed by the popularity and atmosphere of the local espresso houses (Starbucks Company Timeline, 2017). Upon his return the vision of Starbucks as a coffeehouse that customers would regard as a home away from home was established. Starbucks is recognized as a leader in corporate social responsibility. The company has made a commitment to hire 10,000 military veterans by the year 2019, and they have asked that gun owners with open carry permits refrain from bringing weapons into their stores (Kaplan, 2014). These two initiatives and others reveal that Starbucks is not pandering to particular market segments; rather, their public initiatives reflect a genuine effort to do

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