Starbucks

Summary of organization’s historical development

Starbucks Coffee Company was founded in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market (Starbucks Company Profile). The original name of the company was Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices, later changed to Starbucks Coffee Company. Starbucks was named after the first mate in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is the world’s leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee with coffeehouses in North America, Europe, Middle East, Latin America and the Pacific Rim. Worldwide, approximately 35 million customers visit a Starbucks coffeehouse each week (Starbucks Comapy Profile). The first founders of Starbucks were founded by English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegel, and writer Gordon Bowker. The three were inspired by Alfred Peet, whom they knew personally, to open their first store in Pike Place Market. The store originally focused more on the sale of beans and equipment than on selling prepared coffee. After that first year, they bought their beans direct from farmers before roasting them. The company remained small and regional for years and there was not much of a specialty coffee market nationwide. The original Starbucks location was at 2000 Western Avenue from 1971-1976. That store then moved to 1912 Pike Place where it is still open. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans then began buying directly from growers (Jerry Baldwin Bio).

Howard Schultz’s first experience was similar as most customer that walk into a Starbucks store. When he first walked into a Starbucks Coffee Company Store in 1981 he fell in love. Schultz did not fall in love with carefully chosen coffee beans that make the coffee, similar to new Starbucks customers. He fell in love with the culture, individualism, and opportunity of the Starbucks Coffee Company Store, which only consisted of a three-store chain. Schultz was convinced that he wanted to be a part of a great company in the great city of Seattle and approached the owners about becoming Starbucks director of marketing.

After one year at Starbucks, Schultz was traveling in Milan, Italy when he realized coffee bars provided a location for socializing and relaxing (Griffin & Moorhead, 2007, pg.54). He believed that this was a culture that could soon fulfill a social aspect that restaurants and shopping malls fail to address in the United States (Griffin & Moorhead, 2007, pg.54). When Schultz returned home he presented the owners with the idea to enter the highly competitive restaurant business. The owners refused Schultz’s idea, which led him to seek new opportunities in the coffee bar business. Schultz went on to found a successful coffee bar business and, eighteen months later used the profits to buy Starbucks (Griffin & Moorhead, 2007,).

Organizational Objectives

Starbuck’s rapid growth has been a success without franchising and using word-of-mouth advertising, which allows them to keep a quality product in every store. Starbucks is all about purchases and roasts high-quality whole bean coffees and sells them along with fresh, rich-brewed, Italian style espresso beverages, a variety of pastries and confections, and coffee-related accessories and equipment primarily through its company-operated retail stores. In addition to sales through their company operated retail stores, Starbucks sells whole bean coffees through a specialty sales group and supermarkets. Furthermore, Starbucks produces and sells bottled Frappuccino coffee drink and a line of premium ice creams through its joint venture partnerships and offers a line of innovative premium teas produced by its wholly owned secondary, Tazo Tea Company. The Company’s objective is to establish Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world (Starbucks Comapy Profile).

In realizing and achieving this goal, the Company plans to continue to rapidly expand its retail operations, grow its specialty sales and other operations, and selectively pursue opportunities to leverage the Starbucks brand through the introduction of new products and the development of new distribution channels (Starbucks Comapy Profile).

Impact on business and trade

Yesterday Starbucks was a single store in Seattle, Washington and today it is a moved into a global market with over 11,300 stores with more than 3,300 of them in 37 foreign countries (Starbucks Comapy Profile). Starbucks first adventure outside the United States resided in Japan in 1996. By 2001, Starbucks introduced a stock option plan for all Japanese employees, making it the first company in Japan to do so (Starbucks Comapy Profile). Since the opening of our first store on August 2, 1996, in the Ginza district of Tokyo, Starbucks network

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