1) At the time of the case, why had Starbucks been so successful?

There are three factors which made Starbucks successful. Three are production, service and atmosphere. Firstly, they have high standards of coffee. They work directly with the growers from different areas of the world. Furthermore, they work hard on production innovation. Starbucks innovates new productions every certain period. The prices just keep stable during the years. Good quality of productions is the guarantee of a successful business. Secondly, it is the service. According to the graph Importance of ranking o key attribution in creating customer satisfaction, the top four items which make customers satisfied are clean store, convenient, treated as a valuable customer and friendly staff. The staff in Starbucks are trained both in hard skills such as how to make coffee and soft skills which is how to service costumers. The soft skills, for instance, “Just Say Yes” policy and high speed of service, are the main reasons keep costumers come back. Thirdly, the atmosphere is another reason why Starbucks is successful. All the stores keep clean all the time. The staffs are friendly and helpful. The seats are comfortable.

2) Summarize the research presented in the case in terms of the key implications for Starbucks management. What concerns should they have about the results?

The management of Starbucks is different from the conventional one. It had no chief marketing officer and lacked a strategic marketing group. There are three separate groups based on different functions. They are a market research group, a category group and a marketing group. However, this organizational structure is likely to cause market and costumers trends overlooked. Therefore, no one looked at the big picture. Company started to notice the problems after a while. In terms of employees, they employed 60,000