Starbucks Coffee and Dunkin Donuts: A Comparative Analysis

c. Did anything surprise you about the company's values? Why or why not? (1-3 sentences. 1.0 points)

2. What do you think are the motives of Harnischfeger's management in making the changes in its financial reporting policies? Do you think investors will see through these changes?

While there are various brands such as: Folgers, Maxwell House, and Chock Full O’ Nuts you can typically find everyone carrying a Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts cup. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are the top two competitors when it comes to coffee. I personally am caught between the two. On one hand, you have Starbucks, they have great tasting coffee but is very overpriced. Dunkin’ Donuts while doesn’t have all the flavors Starbucks has, is less than half the price of Starbucks. The amount of money you pay for a small ice coffee in Starbucks you can get a large one at Dunkin’ Donuts.

The “Coffee Wars – The Big Three: Starbucks, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts” article focuses on the company analysis of the Starbucks brand and how its main competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts, has affected their brand and driven competition higher. Even though there are many companies trying to enter the specialty coffee market, these three companies own the majority of the market share. With Starbucks’ top quality and above average prices they hold a different market than the fast coffee/food market of Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks; yet the competitive moves Dunkin’ Donuts has made over the years in order to compete with Starbucks and surpass McDonald’s has driven competition up between all three companies. The competition has stiffened ever more in the past ten years due to the changing economy. This led to “the big three” to come up with different techniques to gain competitive advantage over the other. Although the competition between these companies is to gain most of the market share, consumers are still loyal to a certain brand; this makes it difficult to gain each other’s clientele. McDonald’s continues to appeal to customers who want value and speed, Dunkin’ Donuts focuses on the middle-class, while Starbucks a customer who desires a higher quality product along with being recognized for using the brand.

Since Starbucks entered the coffee retail business, the company has made many trade-off business decisions. The first major trade-off was made when Howard Schultz wanted to acquire present day Starbucks from three entrepreneurs Baldwin, Siegel and Bowker. Therefore, Schultz prior to the acquisition made the trade-off to open his own coffee bar in 1986 instead of staying at Starbucks as the manager of retail sales and marketing. A bold feat, Schultz was able to replicate success and was offered to buy Starbucks for $4 million. At the time of the acquisition, many investors, including the former Starbucks owners, would not expect that the American consumer would pay a premium for coffee products. Schultz, after calculating the opportunity cost, was convinced that Starbucks would become a large coffee chain not only in the United States but internationally too. Reflecting this approach, Schultz’s trade-off worked. Starbucks, according to our book has revenue exceeding $13 billion and nearly 200,000 employees. The company has also expanded to 40 countries with 17,000 stores (Hill et al., 2015).

Starbucks Corporation, generally known, as Starbucks Coffee is the leading retailer and a brand of world’s forte coffee in the world, with more than 15,000 retail locations in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim, wherever in this world where premium quality coffee is in demand. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world ahead of UK rival Costa Coffee, with 20737 stores in 63 countries and territories, including 11910 in the United States, 1496 in China, 1442 in Canada, 1052 in Japan and 772 in the United Kingdom. The first Starbucks was open in 1970. The name was inspired from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a definitive American novel regarding the 19th century whaling industry. The nautical name matches seamlessly for a store that imports the world’s finest coffees to the cold thirsty people of Seattle. In May 1998, Starbucks have finally successfully entered the European market through its acquirement of 65 Coffee Company stores initially originated from Seattle in the UK. Both companies shared a common culture, focusing on a great commitment to customized coffee, similar company values and a mutual respect.

With most of the world basically running on coffee, you have more and more different places to buy your coffee every day. Trying to narrow down your options to find the best coffee can seem like a nightmare. The two main and most popular coffee corporations to choose from would be Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks. When choosing a specific location from the two places for your coffee needs there are things to consider such as: price, quality and convenience. I, a 4-6 cups of coffee a day drinker,have had coffee from both places, and have become what you could call, a coffee expert.

It’s a known fact that Starbucks is one of the leading brand in the market.When we analyse the market we find that Mcdonald 's and Dunkin are the competitors in the same product segment. So comparing Starbucks with these competitors will throw light on its grey areas, process and competitive edge in the market.

As a part of the South, sweet tea is a staple here. My nana's sweet tea, however, will always be near and dear to my heart. Sure, it's just a tea bag, water, and sugar, but it's so much more than that. It's like comfort. After a long day of hard work, it's so sweet to come in a have a glass of nan's sweet tea. Now, don't get me wrong, store-bought sweet tea is just fine as well. If I am away from home then I'll buy some. Although, it just couldn't compare to my grandma's. If I ever have the choice it will always be nans just because of pure comfort.

Starbucks financial statements were analyzed for the fiscal year ended September 27, 2015. Like all public companies, annual and quarterly financial statements are required to allow regulators and other interested parties to analyze the financial status and management decision making of the company. This analysis focuses on the results of Starbucks most recent published annual report containing their balance sheets, statement of earnings and cash flows. These statements will be analyzed against the results of one of its competitors, Dunkin Donuts, to investigate how the two companies compare to each other. It was noted that Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts do not have corresponding fiscal year ends. The data therefore is not directly comparable since the reports do not reflect the same time period of data but should provide additional insight. The paper will attempt to provide a brief analysis of Starbucks operations in terms of its liquidity, leverage, activity, profitability and growth ratios used by analysts in the industry.

20 5. Corporate-level strategy 25 6. How is the effectiveness of the company’s strategies? (ROIC) 26 7. What strategic problems does the company have?

d. Does the firm appear to have an effective corporate governance structure? Explain any shortcomings.

Moreover, most of the people know the brand Starbucks as the leader of the coffee industry. It is enormously successful and it comes out with no surprise that this will be used as benchmarking against the study of Dunkin’ Donuts.

Imaging if there was no more coffee in this world, how would you feel? Nowadays, coffee becomes an important part of people’s life. People who often work overtime, they drink coffee because caffeine can make you awake; people who have to wake up early in the morning, they drink coffee because instead of making breakfast, coffee is more convenient; people drink coffee during the free time, because it also tastes good.

Starbucks dates back from 1971 and is based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded by Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl and it