Starbucks Case Study

Global Markets: Starbucking the System

Throughout the global market place, countless examples of success and failure exist, but rarely can one turn to a single entity that demonstrates not only success and failure, but also a phoenix-like return to greatness from the ashes of its own demise. Starbucks offers the world that precise opportunity, an examination which reveals the guiding principles that formed the basis of the company’s high and low points over the last several decades. The clear contrast between those principles offers a compelling tale that clearly illustrates Starbuck’s success is the direct result of its organizational culture, effective management decisions, a key core-competency of its managers, and perhaps most importantly, the impact of the company’s chief executive officer, Howard Schultz (Ostdick, 2011).

Building an Organizational Culture that Contributes to Global Success

As with most organizations, the culture in which the employees operate forms the basis of the behavior generally exhibited by the overall workforce. For Starbucks, creating a culture that inspires its workforce to focus on customer satisfaction differentiates itself from merely a coffee house offering a product to a service-based shop in which the customers’ satisfaction is based on far more than the quality of the product itself. To achieve this culture, however, Starbucks could not simply place a greater emphasis on the customer, as doing so could create a climate in which employees feel underappreciated and in so doing could ultimately risk the potential that the employees will be unable or unwilling to carry-out the company’s desire to achieve customer satisfaction. Instead, Starbucks’ management places its trust in its employees...

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Stoessel, E. (2013, May 23). Schultz inspires with story of starbucks' rise, fall and revival. Retrieved from http://restaurant-hospitality.com/trends/schultz-inspires-story-starbucks-rise-fall-and-revival?page=1