The Starbucks Corporation's Marketing Strategy

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 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.

For more than three decades since Starbucks started its operations, the company was considered as a leading coffee chain operator. However, in 2008, the company faced a significant financial downturn that almost cost it its position in the marketplace. Through strategic planning and adopting a differentiation strategy, Starbucks, under the CEO Howard Shultz, recovered from the financial decline to regain a competitive advantage over other big companies like McDonald's and Panera Bread. This paper will discuss the business strategy and management for Starbucks Company and emphasize the importance of business strategy. It will cover the strategic basics of Starbucks, its financial downfall, an analysis of its profitability and a comparison with its key competitors as well as its technological threats and opportunities.

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.

1.Analyze the business-level strategies for the corporation you chose to determine the business-level strategy you think is most important to the long-term success of the firm and whether or not you judge this to be a good choice. Justify your opinion.

In the north, Starbucks entered a joint-venture with Beijing Mei Da coffee company. In the east, Starbucks partnered with the Taiwan-based Uni-President. In the south, Starbucks worked with Hong Kong-based Maxim’s Caterers. Each partner brings different strengths and local expertise that helped Starbucks gain insights into the tastes and preferences of local Chinese consumers.

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

Starbucks gave the customers what they wanted. They ensured that there were ample locations and endless amounts of stores (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). Furthermore, they provided drive-through services at several locations to further cater to parents with children or those with other needs. Likewise, Starbucks implemented order confirmation screens to help manage accuracy of orders. In addition, Starbucks found it essential to find ways in which to connect with its customers through its products by providing an atmosphere infused with music, books, and movies. Moreover, Starbucks wants to continue to foster entertainment that further supports the foundation of the coffee experience that the many customers have come to expect and enjoy.

One company that has been particularly successful in creating an overall company image in my option has been Starbucks. They have been able to maintain a dominant position in today’s market. Where in the morning most of our society needs a good cup of coffee in order to start their day. At one point, we looked at Starbucks as a high-end marketer. A sort of club to belong to. However, things managed to change in the recent years where a 4.00 cup of coffee was becoming a luxury items. This became known as the Coffee Wars. Starbuck had to now face competition from the fast food world. Which was McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. They started to look at this market as an opening to gain more customers. They started to offer their

Product differentiation is the core of Starbuck’s strategy to gain a sustained competitive advantage. Starbucks offers such differentiation through an excellent customer experience and quality coffee The “Starbucks Experience” is achieved through its well-designed stores with good ambiance and well-trained staff. According to a study conducted by Daily Mail, Starbucks stores provided a more welcoming décor with friendlier baristas compared to independent coffee houses (Fisk, Tracking the Evolution of Services Marketing Literature, Journal of Retailing,

Starbucks has a strong market position and brand awareness, affecting the organization in the expansion of the importance of the general market, an increase of residential and external business sector development.

Starbucks has a challenging, great thoroughly considered conveyance process because of the astounding conveyances every day, yet they are still ready to supply every single story with the adequate amount of coffee with about 70,000 outbound deliveries to the Starbucks stores week by week.

Starbucks is diversifying into other related industries including bottled water, and even the music retailing industry. When a customer enters a Starbucks, they get a wide choice of many different types of products. They provide bagels, souvenirs, pastries, yogurt, wraps, fruit, Frappuccino, Espressos, Tazo teas, and many other items. Starbucks uses contemporary design of all promotional, web-related, and other material to keep it appealing to young generations. This contemporary look and feel is unified throughout all their material, so even the older target segments will feel younger when they drink your coffee.

can order and pay for their drinks in a flash while stacking up rewards for each purchase made. This Strategy has significantly drawn people to Starbucks due to its highly anticipated services, products, and marketing strategies that differ from most fast food restaurants. The next service is the Starbucks webpage where the customers can go onto the site and view product and also make purchases. This service is quite excellent for those that want to checkout items online through the site, because it incorporates a similar process as the application on your smartphone. Starbucks also incorporates equipment and drinkware to their massive line of products. First their Drinkware consists of cups and mugs that are affordable to the customers. These cups come in many colors and aesthetic values, which make people interested in purchasing. Starbucks had the right idea when they decided to manufacture these cups out to their customers because not only were they a huge success for the business, but it also made Starbucks distribute more merchandise. Cold cups, which were from stainless steel containers. These containers made a rise once the popularity rose for other merchandise. These containers were sold very often to customers and once again made a surprise since it was from the same line of cups and mugs category. As more popularity grew in their products so did the equipment used to make customers coffee. First Starbucks decided to manufacture coffee makers, presses, and expresso

“The marketing mix is the set of tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. It consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its products” (Kotler et al., 2013, p.53). Its main characteristics can be categorised into a 4Ps framework.