Introduction
Starbuck Corporation is the largest and the most famous international coffee brand; its headquarters are based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Starbucks has a very extensive coffeehouse chain – it is located in 44 countries with a total of 15,012 shops worldwide. The Starbucks Corporation expanded and now it even sells ice cream, books, music, and movies.
Analysis
Starbucks was started as a brand that promoted the basic emotions of love and the vital goodness of coffee. But as time progressed and the brand become rampant, the company became too busy working on its brand, the expansion, opening up of new shops, producing new technology to improve efficiency, improving sales. Little did the administration realize that they were moving away from their core purpose; the purpose that basically differentiated Starbucks from any other random coffee house. The heritage of Starbucks is slowly being lost in the glamour – the warmth of a friendly coffee house for romantic and aesthetic coffee lovers disappeared (BusinessWeek, 2007). Also, a few things could lose the customer confidence as well; the making of coffee behind huge machine bars does not give a view to the customers and that might just make them suspicious. Since Starbucks uses the highest possible quality coffee and work extra hard to impress their customers, they should give a view of this to the customers to make them even fonder of Starbucks.
Alternatives
Starbucks needs to be made more festive; instead of building the flashiest and the most physically attractive coffee shops, there is a need to build a coffee house charming yet cozy atmosphere. To become more appealing to the customers, they could build ‘urgent’ coffee stalls within the same Starbucks shop which has the same lively and soothing music with the sensational aroma of coffee. Another alternative is that Starbucks should not standardize the type of coffee shops they built; some should be classy, while the others can be cozy and friendly.
Evaluation of Alternatives
These urgent stalls are a means to replace the coffee machines which are too automatic to be humanly touching. While they wait, only for a while thought since the service will be urgent and there will be a large number of attendants to serve them, they can enjoy the warm atmosphere and the music and the liveliness around the place. The second alternative is more of an experiment; plus, if it fails, it can mean a huge waste of resources by Starbucks. Also, this will confuse the customers and lose a standard culture of Starbucks. There will be a loss of identity and association of Starbucks with a certain culture would become difficult.
Best Alternative
The best choice is the first one; Starbucks cannot afford to lose its brand identity. With the first one, customers will truly experience Starbucks, however, and unfortunately, for only a little while. The first alternative would mean hiring a higher number of employees but the machines’ maintenance can compensate for that.
Weakness
If Starbucks does not choose to change its strategy, there is a chance that the sales might not fall due to the awesome taste of the coffee, but the brand of Starbucks will lose its competitive advantage and will not have a differentiated service that would attract a greater deal of customers.
Recommendations and Conclusions
There should definitely be a change in the policies of Starbucks in favor of their heritage and amazing corporate and shop culture. Otherwise, Starbucks will be at a loss of values and just a simple drive for more profits. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that even though profits are the first priority of a business, the culture and heritage should not be compromised upon.
References
- 2007, “Saving Starbucks’ Soul,” BusinessWeek, The McGraw-Hill Companies
- Starbucks (2009). Web.