Premium Essay

Starbucks

In:

Submitted By tlbeatti
Words 1046
Pages 5
Case 2 Questions
1. Why do you think Starbucks has been so concerned with social responsibility in its overall corporate strategy?
In my opinion, Starbucks has been so concerned with social responsibility because it was a way to develop a certain type of respect for the brand. The greater the respect the more profitable the company would be. It also helps their image, to care about the community and its environment.
2. Is Starbucks unique in being able to provide a high level of benefits to its employees?
Yes, I think Starbucks is very unique in providing benefits to their employees. They have definitely set the bar high for other fast food companies. Not only do they offer health, dental, and vision but they also give their employees the opportunity to invest in stock. Starbucks believe that taking care of their employees is important to their success and as mentioned in the case the company has spent more money on providing healthcare then on coffee beans.
3. Do you think that Starbucks has grown rapidly because of its ethical and socially responsible activities or because it provides products and an environment that customers want?
To be honest, I think it’s a mixture of both. Starbucks has put money back into the stake holder to defend their image and they are also creating a happy work environment by providing benefits to their employees that work 20+ hours per week. They are giving their employees what a lot of employees wish for and making them feels a part of the corporation. They’ve also created a laid back environment for their customers by offering free wifi and a place they can go to work or study. Every location is conveniently located by office buildings, bookstores, and college campuses. This case also talks about how Starbucks maintains a good reputation for social responsibly and business ethics throughout the international

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...STARBUCKS CORPORATION: SERVING MORE THAN COFFEE Wake up and smell the coffee—Starbucks is everywhere! As the world’s No. 1 specialty coffee retailer, Starbucks serves more than 25 million customers in its stores every week. The concept of Starbucks goes far beyond being a coffeehouse or coffee brand. It represents the dream of its founder, Howard Schultz, who wanted to take the experience of an Italian—specifically, Milan— espresso bar to every corner of every city block in the world. So what is the Starbucks experience? According to the company: You get more than the finest coffee when you visit Starbucks. You get great people, first-rate music, a comfortable and upbeat meeting place, and sound advice on brewing excellent coffee at home. At home you’re part of a family. At work you’re part of a company. And somewhere in between there’s a place where you can sit back and be yourself. That’s what a Starbucks store is to many of its customers—a kind of “third place” where they can escape, reflect, read, chat, or listen. But there is more; Starbucks has embraced corporate social responsibility like few other companies. A recent Starbucks Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report described the company’s views on social responsibility: Starbucks defines corporate social responsibility as conducting our business in ways that produce social, environmental, and economic benefits to the communities in which we operate. In the end, it means being responsible...

Words: 1403 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Starbucks Student Name Course Instructor Date Starbucks The Starbucks Corporation has enjoyed phenomenal growth since its early days in 1971 as a quaint coffee shop in Seattle, Washington. The rise of Starbucks can be directly attributed to the following factors; the emphasis placed on product quality, high employee standards, and creating the perfect cup of coffee (Coffee.org, 2013, pg.1). Starbucks has a reputation of caring about the community, environment, and people. “We aim to foster a better future for farmers and a more stable climate for the planet. Doing this helps create a long-term supply of the high-quality beans we’ve been carefully blending, roasting and packing fresh for more than forty years.” (Starbucks, 2013, pg.1). The company has a loyal customer base willing to pay premium prices for Starbucks products. Starbucks has strategically located its stores in the community, which is a competitive advantage. Starbucks is ahead of most competitors when it comes to financial strength and profitability. One of the strongest advantages of Starbucks they have years of experience delivering quality blended, premium coffee to its customers that are met with a warm atmosphere, which results in incomparable customer service. Starbucks products may be more expensive than those offered by the competition, however, their customer service, different brands of coffee and community connections offset. The customers of Starbucks have shared the experience as a community...

Words: 976 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Klein Kelly Dunbar Senior Project 19 March 2013 Starbucks Starbucks could be called one of the largest success stories in American history. The company started from humble beginnings and worked its way to the top. Starting from a small building in Pike Place market in Seattle Washington, there are now more than 20,000 locations worldwide. The company’s mission and goals have allowed it to succeed in a fast pace world, and Starbuck’s loyal customers have stuck by their favorite brand through it all. The Starbucks experience is unique from all others. The history and progress of the company have contributed to the Starbucks lifestyle we all know today. In 1971 Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Jordan Bowker pulled together $8,000 to open up the first Starbucks. Alfred Peet, their supplier of premium coffee beans and equipment helped inspire their venture (gourmet-coffee-zone 1). In 1982, Baldwin insisted on bringing Howard Shultz into the company as leader of the marketing department. After a trip to Italy, Shultz felt very inspired by the fashionable coffee houses and café culture he saw. Baldwin was not originally sold by the idea. He didn’t want selling coffee by the cup to distract from his whole coffee bean sales, but he let Howard test it out in a corner of one of the stores. Eventually Howard Shultz left Starbucks to start his own business. Selling his coffee by the cup was a big success. In 1987 he purchased Starbucks for 3.7 million dollars (gourmet-coffee-zone 1). Although...

Words: 2646 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Starbucks is a public company. that operates a chain of stores that sells high-quality coffee. Its typical company-owned store has a pleasant, coffee-house atmosphere complete with couches and Wi-Fi and is known for being a place to meet and gather. Starbucks licenses its stores to other business, not to individuals. For example, in the US Starbucks licenses stores to Host International, Inc. an Autogrill group (my employer), is a concessions company found in airports around the world, in operating travel malls on the East Coast and Canada, and doing business various malls throughout the U.S. Many of our establishments provide the standard Starbucks atmospheres; others just have a counter to sell coffee and pastries. Starbuck’s stores account for about 90% of Starbuck’s revenue. Global expansion is essential to Starbucks, just as it is to other successful companies. In 2003, Starbucks opened in foreign markets. But, the company encountered problems. Internally the problems arose within the company’s international business model, and externally the problems arose in the form of overseas competition. “Starbucks quickly learned that tactics that had worked to establish the market in the domestic market were not favorable in international expansion” (Yunker, 2006). Starbucks also encountered issues with rival coffee shops copying the Starbucks’ business practices (i.e., the Starbucks name, and even the Starbucks company logo). In turn, the company had to utilize intellectual...

Words: 1136 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Introduction Starbucks, known as one of the most popular coffee franchises in the world with over 17,000 stores in 49 different countries in present days was founded in year 1971. Starbucks Company has been loved by people for revolutionizing people’s leisure time with the quality of services and the quality of the products they provide, but the real key points to its success were different aspects they cared about including employee aspect, customer aspect, and even society aspect. When the company started to grow, they started to be responsible for such aspects other than just caring about the profit they can earn by increasing awareness of ethics in its business and launching Shared Planet website with three different goals in order to involve the company’s commitment to ethics and sustainability. Starbucks is a company which trying to stay close to us, hears us, and respond to the customers, employees, the public, and us. Why do you think Starbucks has been so concerned with social responsibility in its overall corporate strategy? There are many different reasons why Starbucks has been so concerned with social responsibility. Firstly, human resources, teamwork and involvement can let the current employees and potential employees know that they are working in Starbucks for a good cause can encourage and motivate them to work better or wants to work for the company. Secondly, brand differentiation. Stating the company’s futuristic goals on either their official website...

Words: 2488 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...STARBUCKS IS COMING TO INDIA INTRODUCTION As we all may know, behind any successful achievement, there is a long story of withstanding hardship and endeavouring persistently behind any success. The Starbucks’ case of successfully bringing the brand into the Indian market is one example. This paper is to study the (3) reasons why Starbucks International decided to expand its market scale internationally and to figure out the initial criteria required for Indian Market. This is also to analyse appropriate circumstances at that time for Starbucks to be able to earn its foothold there provides us with valuable business guidance. Besides, this study by pointing out key factors which lead to Starbucks’ success in launching its brand in India demonstrates how Starbucks applied sustained competitive advantage and dealt with obstacles during the launching period, which created significant courage for Starbucks International to move next steps to fulfil its ambition for international expansion. COMPANY’S OVERVIEW Founded in 1971 in Seattle, Starbucks was started as a store to roast and sell coffee bean by three partners. Its name and logo were named after the famous novel Moby Dick. In 1987, Howard Schultz who is currently the company’s CEO acquired Starbucks and single-handedly converted it into a national, publicly owned company. Having more than 11,000 stores in 36 countries worldwide and over 10,000 employees in 2006 (Case Study), the company grew to about 17,000 stores (starbucks...

Words: 2717 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...John Kuechly Marketing 550 Fall 2014 Case 3: Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service 1. What factors accounted for the extraordinary success of Starbucks in the early 1990’s? a. What was so compelling about the Starbucks value proposition? b. What brand image did Starbucks develop during this period? Many factors accounted for the success of Starbucks. Some of these factors include the many locations around a given urban area, the variety of products, and how Schultz set out to create Starbucks as the “third place” for Americans. Due to the high volume of stores in a given area, people are able to stop by for their daily fix of Joe wherever they may be. If a businessman is walking through an airport, he could stop by the CVG location. A soccer mom could be driving down Reed Hartman Highway and get a coffee at the intersection of Cornell and Reed Hartman. Students at either XU or UC could stop by various locations around their respective campuses as well. Besides selling the regular black coffee, Starbucks capitalized on innovating new items each holiday season. Every fall and winter season, Starbucks launched new hot products for customers. This diversification allowed more people to shop at Starbucks if they had a different preference for their coffee. Finally, Schultz’s platform of making Starbucks the “third place” for Americans is what lead to Starbucks’ compelling value proposition. A. Starbucks was keen on keeping alive the coffee bar culture alive...

Words: 1723 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Starbucks’ Company History Starbucks was formed in 1971, in a single store in the state of Seattle. From just a small store, it offers the world best quality coffees with stores across the globe. The Chairman, Howard Schultz in 1981 had his first coffee Sumatra and has been drawn ever since. A year later he joined the company and went to Italy to see how their coffee shops operate and the varieties it offered. The owners back then did not agree to his ideas because he wanted to change things to be same like in Italy. He then left the company and three years later in 1987 he bought the company from its owners. From the start he set out a different tradition. One that will let customers enjoy coffee from different parts of the globe and they would interact while enjoying coffee. Today the company has over 16000 stores around the world and it’s operating in 63 countries. Starbucks is known to have specialty coffee from different parts of the world. Our mission  To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. Identifying Consumer Base Identifying consumer base is the most important goal in marketing. This is done through market segmentation. Stabucks company is a peoples- oriented company and this is important for their success in the long-run. Understanding and knowing who they are trying to reach is important. This is because not everyone is interested in the company product or service, (Grewal, p.245). There are a number of...

Words: 1336 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...1.0 INTRODUCTION Name : Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) Headquarters : Seattle, Washington, U.S. Employees : 176,000 in 2008 Revenue for 2008 : US$10.383 billion CEO : Howard Schultz (Founder of Starbucks coffeehouse) Starbucks Corporation is an international coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 16,120 stores in 49 countries, including around 11,000 in the United States, followed by nearly 1,000 in Canada and more than 800 in Japan. Starbucks sells drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks, and items such as mugs and coffee beans. Through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company also markets books, music, and film. Many of the company's products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also offered at grocery stores. Starbucks’ Italian style coffee, espresso beverages, teas, pastries and confections had made Starbucks one of the greatest retailing stories of recent history and world’s biggest specialty coffee chain. In 2003, Starbucks made the fortune 500. 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE COMPANY 1.1.1 Era before Howard Schultz In 1971, three academics, English Teacher Jerry Baldwin, History Teacher Zel Siegel and writer Gordon Bowker opened Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice in Touristy Pikes Place Market in Seattle. The three were inspired...

Words: 7365 - Pages: 30

Premium Essay

Starbucks

.... Starbucks MKT 111b Marjorie Kaufman Over the last few decades Starbucks has reshaped how we shop for and enjoy coffee. What began as a small shop in Seattle, Washington; has become one of the world’s largest producers of coffee and coffee related products. Starbucks was started by three friends; Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl; in Seattle, Washington. Good coffee seemed hard to come by and Bowker was traveling to Canada to buy coffee beans he felt made a good cup. The three decided they would start their own company using the coffee beans they preferred, dark roasted arabica. The name Starbucks came from the name of the first mate in the book Moby Dick, Starbuck. Bowker, while working for an ad agency, came across a town called Starbo on an old mining map of the area around Mount Rainer. This made him think of Starbuck from Moby Dick. The three friends agreed on the name and pluralized it (Bussing-Burks, 2009). The original business plan for the store was to sell gourmet coffee beans. All three owners learned how to roast coffee beans from an expert in California, Alfred Peet. Initially they purchased their beans from him. When demand became more than Peet could handle Starbucks began roasted their own beans. They purchase a used coffee bean roaster and started making their own blends. In the 1980’s Howard Schultz, the current CEO, came on board and eventually bought the company. Starbucks provides consumers with high quality coffee made from only...

Words: 903 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Starbucks Marketing Goals and Objectives Teneisha Gamble Grantham University BA440: Marketing Analysis Benjamin Brink 26 October 2014 Abstract Traditional, when you think of coffee it is brewed at home or at a restaurant. The beginning of Starbucks was an idea of three guys who wanted the European-style of whole bean coffee taste, unlike the traditional of Folgers’s and Maxwell House coffee. With the change of times Howard Schultz reinvent how Americans viewed coffee. Using the Italian coffee and barista idea, he incorporated the idea to what we call Starbucks. The vision of camaraderie between the customers, and the barista is what Starbucks was founded on. Launching a coffee shop like any other business there must be a plan and goal to market the product. Starbucks Marketing Goal and Objectives Starbucks was a vision of Howard Schultz who was the marketing director, until he bought out the company. Starbucks opened its’ doors in 1971, exceeding competitor Seattle’s Best which in 2003 the company acquired. In the beginning Starbucks used the word of mouth approach for advertisement...

Words: 940 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Starbucks

...Within the Starbucks organization control mechanisms such as, bureaucratic control, market control and clan control are put to use daily. With any type of control mechanism there are positive and negative aspects to each. Let us look at the positive and negative reactions to control mechanisms within the Starbucks organization starting with bureaucratic control. The use of bureaucratic control for Starbucks is implemented and managed on the executive level. At this level, bureaucratic control is used by management to control employee behavior through a system of rewards and formal procedures. One way Starbucks implements its formal procedures is through the control of franchising. Howard Schultz the owner and creator of Starbucks is quoted on franchising by stating, “Starbucks remain steadfastly opposed to franchising, so that the company could control the quality of its products and build a culture common to all stores”(MHHE). Starbucks uses bureaucratic control positively by maintaining control over its product and location sites. Negatively this can impact bureaucratic control when it comes to franchising. Unlike Starbucks, McDonalds encourages franchising. It is through the independent owners of McDonald’s franchises that creative and new products are made and added to the companies menu. Many ideas for new items on the menu come from the franchisees responding to customer demand (MCDONALDS.CO.UK) Market control is another type of control mechanism used by...

Words: 585 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Introduction Starbucks has evolved over the years into a retail giant, branching out into new areas and partnering with other giants to get their brand to the masses. There are several reasons why Starbucks is on top of their market, one being the meticulous attention they pay to details. Starbucks prides itself in providing the highest quality product with excellent customer service. Coffee beans were imported from all over the world and freshly roasted in shop. The premium coffee company has a loyal following of coffee and tea consumers imbibing something like a million drinks per week at its 16,000 stores worldwide. The stores were constructed to give the customer a unique and intimate experience upon every visit. The java giant has earned the title of the world's largest coffeehouse company. But Starbucks is also one of those companies people love to hate. Whether it's the issue of recyclable cups, Fair Trade coffees, labor rights, corporate social responsibility, predatory business tactics, or over-roasted coffee, there's no shortage of strong anti-Starbucks sentiments these days. The collected data was not only showing a lack of image and product differentiation between Starbucks’ products and other smaller coffee chains but also a discontent with customer service. The branding strategy followed by the coffee company had three main components. First was the coffee itself that was believed to be the highest-quality coffee in the world, sourced from Africa. The second...

Words: 1069 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Starbucks

...Starbucks Company Learning Team A ECO365 Principles of Microeconomics University of Phoenix February 6, 2012. Prof. Carlos Mendez Starbucks Company Named after the first mate in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, in 1971 the first Starbucks opens in Seattle. At the beginning we just wanted to be a small store, a retailer of whole and ground bean coffee, tea and spices. With a mission, to inspire and nurture the human spirit-one person one cup and one neighborhood at a time. The integration of Howard Schultz in 1982, as director of retail operations and marketing brought new ideas and products. In 1983 Howard travelled to Italy and was impressed with the espresso bar in Milan. He then convinced the founders of Starbucks to try the coffeehouse approach and the first Starbucks® Caffé Latte was served. By the 1990 a total of 84 stores were opened in the United States. In 1998 the Starbucks brand coffee could be found in supermarkets or in one of the 2,498 stores. Not only was the company growing but the ideas and new products had an impact worldwide. In 2001 with 4,709 stores opened an ethical coffee sourcing guidelines where implemented and on 2006 with 15, 011 stores the first paper beverage...

Words: 1255 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Starbucks

... Starbuck's Coffee If you ask any person outside the United States what are the foods associated with Americans the first thing out of their mouths are McDonalds’s and Starbucks. It is almost impossible to travel more than fifty miles and not see one of these companies. Starbucks Corporation is an international Coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, USA. Starbucks has more than 17,000 stores all over the world. Starbucks sells all different kinds of brewed coffee, espresso hot drinks, all different kinds of teas and many other hot or cold drinks along with selling their own coffee beans and if you really love the Starbucks name you are able to purchase all different kinds of mugs, cups and presents inside all of their stores. Starbucks is part of the American culture, it has created a generation where they view Starbucks as not just a coffee store but a place where the customer can go and relax with their laptop at the same time as sipping a great cup of coffee. It is unbeatable that Starbucks definitely sells not just a regular cup of coffee, as per their mission statement: “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” (Farris, 2012,)What Starbucks is doing worldwide is selling an experience that the American culture quickly became to love. If Starbucks were to open a store in Italy it would face some major differences, first the cultural differences. Italians have a total different way of how they consume coffee which is...

Words: 688 - Pages: 3