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Starbucks business ethics
The key to Starbucks’ success
Starbucks business ethics
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Starbucks as a Morally Responsible Company:
Starbucks Coffee Company is an American coffee firm that operates globally and headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Currently, Starbucks Coffee Company is the largest coffeehouse firm across the globe with over 20,000 chain stores in more than 60 countries. Generally, the company serves various brands of hot and cold beverages across its stores such as microground instant coffee, pastries, whole-bean coffee, and full-leaf teas. The success and productivity of the Starbucks in its global operations is attributed to the fact that it has remained committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality of Arabica coffee since its inception. The ethical commitment is evident in the fact that it behaves morally responsible toward consumers, the environment, and employees. As a result, Starbucks Coffee Company was recognized as one of the most ethical companies as listed in Etisphere website. The recognition is based on acknowledging companies that translate their statements on ethical responsibility into action.
Starbucks’ Corporate Culture:
Starbucks is considered as one of the world’s most ethical or morally responsible companies because of its corporate culture. In addition to treating its partners well, one of the pillars of Starbucks corporate culture is contributing positively to the environment and communities it serves (“Starbucks Coffee Company”, 2002). The decision to contribute positively to the communities and the environment was fueled by the awareness and concern of its employees regarding poverty and environmental issues across the globe. Furthermore, the decision was made in attempts to sustain and promote continued growth and profitability of the company. ...
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...e based on the needs and wants of customers (Kha, 2000). The second area is to incorporate what the company has learnt about its customers into closed-loop marketing where it can customize marketing offers to all its customers.
In conclusion, Starbucks Coffee Company is an example of a firm whose success and profitability has been fueled by morally conscious business decisions and practices. Actually, Starbucks has remained successful by focusing on consumers, employees, and the environment. One of the major effects of these decisions and practices on the company is that they contribute to the improvement of its bottom line results. However, Starbucks needs to adopt measures that focus on consumers in a equal manner at it focuses on employees and the environment. These measures include developing a customer experience strategy and customizing marketing offers.
Starbucks is the world’s largest specialty coffee retailer, Starbucks has more than 16,000 retail outlets in more than 35 countries. Starbucks owns more than 8,500 of its outlets, while licensees and franchisees operate more than 6,500 units worldwide, primarily in shopping centers and airports. The outlets offer coffee drinks and food items such as pastries and confections, as well as roasted beans, coffee accessories, teas and a line of compact discs. The company also owns the Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia coffee brands. In addition, Starbucks markets its coffee through grocery stores and licenses its brand for other food and beverage products. Starbucks Corporation was founded in 1985 and is based in Seattle, Washington. (Bramhall)
Starbucks’ programs are built upon a strong set of foundational standards and work is done directly with a diverse set of suppliers who have the same commitment to ethical sourcing. The social and environmental standards also give Starbucks the opportunity to assist suppliers with improvements in their practices. Starbucks is always aiming for improvement and is willing to even halt business due to the nature of issues until their standards can be met. In 2006, Starbucks introduced an annual Supplier Summit in China. The purpose of the Supplier Summit was to bring together a variety of stakeholders whose focus is to improve the working conditions in areas where their products are sourced. More than several years ago Starbucks has introduced
The main stakeholders of Starbucks include the employees, customers, suppliers, investors, environment and the government (Thompson, 2015). Starbucks gives priority to their staff and ensures that they are happy with the provision of better working conditions, job security, and higher wages. Thus, the company builds the community, facilitating the growth of the employees. The company listens to their customers to improve the quality of service and products. For instance, Starbucks creates a warm and friendly relation with customers to satisfy their social responsibility with this stakeholder. By ensuring their suppliers are properly paid through their Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFÉ) program, Starbucks fulfills their commitment to the suppliers through awareness. The company creates eco-conscious stores (Starbucks Corporation, 2016) and ensures to follow environmentally sound business practices using their foresight. Starbucks supports the emergency relief services. In 2005, they helped rebuild the Hurricane Katrina struck areas (Adams, 2007). Through their high financial performance in the industry, the company meets the interests of the investors proving the ability to conceptualize. Being an international company, Starbucks remains respectful of the people’s perspectives from the respective governments. Thus, they satisfy their commitment and
Starbucks not only shapes a defined importance on its product, the coffee, but also the relationships on its partners, its customers and its shareholders to create diversity, “to create a place where each of us can be ourselves” (Starbucks Coffee), to treat all related partners with dignity and respect at the greatest corporate level. In this sense, Starbucks involves its customers, its neighbors and is shareholders to participate in the community to “be a force for positive action—bringing together [its] partners, customers, and the community to contribute every day (Starbucks Coffee).
...healthy environment, economy, or political state is left up to those who buy and distribute coffee. While the model that Starbucks follows to come by and sell their coffee may not be perfect it is at least a step in the right direction.
Starbucks is currently the industry leader in specialty coffee. They purchased more high quality coffee beans than anyone else in the world and keep in good standings with the producers to ensure they get the best beans. Getting the best beans is only the first part, Starbucks also has a “closed loop system” that protects the beans from oxygen immediately after roasting to the time of packaging. They did this through their invention of a one-way valve which let the natural gasses escape but keeping oxygen out. This gave them the unique ability to ensure freshness and extended the shelf life to 26 weeks. Starbucks isn’t only about the coffee, it’s also about a place where people can escape to enjoy music, reflect, read, or just chat. It is a total coffee experience. The retail outlet has been responsible for much of Starbucks growth and has contributed substantially to their brand equity.
This quote explains that the company cares more about growth than quality. It is important to think about growing, but according to the article, some people think like this about the corporation because of the competition between the coffee shops like Dunkin’ Donuts or other reasons. Furthermore, based on the research, the idea of having “Customer Snapshot” proves that the company cares about quality and service. According to the article, the Customer Snapshot is a measurement of service performance that Starbucks has. Basically, they lead the customers to rate them based on some of the basic services which are cleanliness, product quality, and speed of service. In addition, this quote supports the idea of having best ethical service, “The last thing we want to do is win the argument and lose the customer” (Moon). The company cares about the customers, quality, service, and growth. This shows that the company wants to improve and be better and have the best ethical services that make people want to be in their third place. And they will encourage others to try and have an amazing experience in Starbucks same as
The structure of Starbucks business communication is exceptional. Rather you are in their store buying a Caramel Frappuccino®, visiting their website or watching one of their advertisements on television; as the consumer, the message is loud and clear. Pick up any newspaper and you are likely to find an article about the coffee giant. Starbucks pledges a commitment to their over 172,000 partners (employees) and the community. “We realize our people are the cornerstone of our success, and we know that their ideas, commitment and connection to our customers are truly the essential elements in the Starbucks Experience” (Starbucks, 2008).
Starbucks is an international coffee house and it was created in 1971 when they opened the first store in Seattle, Newcastle. Currently, they own 21,000 stores in 65 different countries of the world, and their passion for the great coffee, excellent service and community interaction exceeds cultures and languages (Starbucks, 2014). This company is the number 1 brand coffeehouse chain in the world due to the best roaster, marketer and seller of speciality coffee. Its main slogan: “Our mission: to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time” (Jurevicius, 2013).
With clear core values towards providing quality coffee, the best service, and atmosphere, Starbucks has enjoyed great success since it was founded 30 years ago. The company has being doing very well for last 11 years with 5% or more store sales increase, even with the rest economy still reeling from the post-9/11 recession. However recent research, conducted to Starbucks, have showed some concerns regarding company’s problem meeting customers’ expectations.
Everything centers on the organizational culture within Starbucks. While being a customer service-based company and understanding that the customer satisfaction and loyalty are what will make the company profitable, Starbucks takes a different approach to customer service than other companies. By hiring employees that fit in the organizational culture (ICFAI, 2005) and treating their employees well (Lefevere, n.d.), Starbucks brings in and retains customers through their happy employees. The qualities that Starbucks hires for are "adaptability, dependability and the ability to work in a team" (ICFAI, 2005). The culture is supportive and laid back (Montana, 2005). Howard Shultz, Starbucks president and CEO, has the theory "that if you treat your employees well, they will treat your customers well" (Starbucks, 1997).
The advantage of achieving and perceiving to achieve corporate responsibility is a stringer and therefore, more rewardable reputation. Starbucks knows that strong corporate reputation can lead to more profit and defend the company in times of crisis and during public policy issue battle with environmentalist and human right activities. As Freeman and Gilbert once mention, the basic idea of corporate social responsibility is simple. Firms are social entities, and so they should play a role in the social issues of the day. They should take seriously their “obligations to society” and actively try to fulfill them. (Freeman & Gilbert,
Most obviously, community is about people. Starbucks not only connects consumers with their company, but addresses the lifecycle of community from start to finish, starting with the farmers that grow their coffee, to the customers that drink it in their stores. In my opinion, one reason for their immense success has been their ability to communicate their mission to their customers, and allow their customers to feel like they are part of the mission. For example, for every bottle of Ethos water purchased, Starbucks will donate $0.05. According to Starbucks’ website, “$12.3 million has been granted to help support water, sanitation and hygiene education programs in water-stressed countries – benefiting more than 500,000 people around the world.” In addition to developing programs to supporting communities around the world, Starbucks also engages in philanthropic community efforts locally. A variety of projects currently exist, and Starbucks encourages their customers and employees to volunteer in these programs, which includes veterans and military support, creating jobs, diversity & inclusion, and opportunity for
Starbucks is a worldwide company, known for is delicious brews of coffee and seasonal varieties of tasty drinks for any occasion. Starbucks opened with two main goals, sharing great coffee with friends and to help make the world a little better. It originated in the historic Pike Place Market of Seattle, Washington in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. The creation of Starbucks’ name came from the seafaring tradition of early coffee traders and the romance evoked from Moby Dick. At the time, this individual shop specialized in the towering quality of coffee over competitors and other brewing services enabling its growth to becoming the largest coffee chain in Washington with numerous locations. In the early 1980s, the current CEO Schultz saw an opportunity for growth in the niche market. After a trip to Italy he brought back the idea of a café style environment of leisure and social meetings to the United States we now see in Starbucks locations today. Schultz ultimately left Starbucks to open his own coffee shop, Il Giornale which turned out to be a tremendous success. Fast forward a year later, Schultz got wind that Starbucks was going to sell all their components of Starbucks including their stores and factories, he immediately acquired the funds to buy Starbucks and linked both operations. Within five years he was able to open more than 125 stores starting in New England, Boston, Chicago, and gradually entered California. He wanted Starbucks to be a franchise system based on the mission of telling the truth and emphasize the quality,
When I saw this discussion, I couldn’t help but think of Starbucks and the impact they’ve made throughout their 45 years of establishment. I worked with them for about 7 years and saw how unique they were from your everyday coffee and latte spots. A retail company with thousands of coffee shops in the US as well as in other countries, this particular retailer has been able to catch the eyes of all ages as well as locations throughout the world. For example, today college students utilize Starbucks locations to study rather than go to a nearby library. Starbucks is also known for its best coffee and espresso drinks (Latte or Frappuccino) and with one of its delicious espresso 's any student or just a person stopping in to enjoy its lounge area where there is free Wi-Fi is awesome! Starbucks lifecycle has made a 360 turn around and been revamped twice to accommodated the growing market. Customizing their brand to fit more in with everything and not just one thing. By doing this they’ve created multiple product lifecycles within their own lifecycle as a corporate company.