Becoming a global brand
It was the Starbucks CEO Shultz whose sights were fixed firmly on the international market. It took lots of efforts and investment. Acquisition of Seattle Coffee company to get to UK market, and also licensing local reputable retailers outside the US, sometimes becoming a joint venture partner. The subsidiary – Starbucks Coffee International – was founded especially for these purposes. Also it takes time not only to find local partners and proper spots for the coffeehouse, but also spend 13 weeks to educate local managers before they begin pouring coffee.
Also it takes time to capture the local market, as Starbucks does not use regular advertising, fully relying on product quality that promotes itself and word-of-mouth ad, getting from the customer to probable one.
There are other challenges that Shultz has expected – he understood that such rapid expansion (ballooning size) needs to be closely monitored, not to lose focus on the cosy atmosphere and great coffee flavor in the race of partnerships and new product introduction.
The worldwide plans were probably too ambitious – Shultz estimated global market for Starbucks in 10000 places.
Looking from contemporary point of view, we need to say that Starbucks appears to be not the same as invented in old goods times. First, as they appealed to the grab-and –go customers, meaning the speed of delivery – there is not much time to chat with barista, and the latter has no time to do it – as he simply needs to serve the beverages. Although Starbucks has introduced Express stores for such speed deliveries, it dilutes one of the brand’s core values. And the bad thing about it is that Starbucks premium price cannot be justified in the situation when it turns to grab-and-go, ...