Starbucks: Failure Abroad
Introduction
When one thinks of a global corporation, one thinks of a company who has got it together. They must right? How else could a corporation overcome transnational barriers and socio-cultural issues and still make a profit? Turns out not all global companies have this ability. Some do for the most part but are still vulnerable to mistakes. Such is the case with Starbuck’s failure in Australia. We will introduce you to the company, overview their history and expansion efforts, and explain in short why they failed miserably at something they have done literally thousands of times before.
General Information
Starbucks Coffee International, Inc. purchases, roasts, and sells whole bean coffees, brewed
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(Shultz).
Starbucks Franchise Opportunity
Starbucks does not expand by way of traditional franchising. They do however have another opportunity they offer to those seeking Starbucks outlets. This idea resembles the franchise, but is still different; they call it a Starbucks Licence Store. Around 44 % – 54 % of the worldwide Starbucks stores are Starbucks Licensed Stores. Starbucks only offers the ability to license stores based on location. Generally it is only possible to license Starbucks stores in areas where corporate stores cannot operate, such as universities or airports.
The Starbucks licensed plan (resale plan) has its own strict rules. Starbucks receives royalties and licensing fees from the licensees, and in turn the licensee obtains the ability to offer Starbucks products to their consumers. Starbucks prohibits the licensee stores from offering other firm’s products in their stores so they can control the quality of coffee in all coffee shops more easily. In addition, all employees of both corporate stores and licensed stores must receive the same training. The training is developed by Starbucks and implemented both domestically and internationally alike. Licensed stores make it possible for Starbucks to expand easily while still maintaining the quality of product and service in every single store (www.best-franchise-opportunity-insights.com).
Problems with International Expansion
The
In Canada, The coffee retail industry has developed in the previous five years. The franchises is major factor in any business to expand their business for future growth. Actually Starbucks coffee is not a franchises. So they are company owned stores. They offer a different types of flexible coffee, tea program and stores for rang of various markets, and Markets include healthcare, universities & colleges resorts & hotels and existing restaurant. They additionally can take into account qualified high volume or high traffic retail locations.
Starbucks is no doubt a phenomenon in the United States, but the brand wants to expand globally. Opening chains in various global locations such as Japan, Vienna, England; Starbucks wants to reach out to the coffee loving fans everywhere. Nevertheless opening chains globally is not that simple. There are many uncontrollable factors Starbucks need to focus on to make sure they are making profit as well has abiding by the country’s laws and regulations. Going global takes a lot of market research to make sure that the brand will be successful even with uncontrollable factors. Controllable factors can be tailored to fit the needs of each country. Starbucks has to find the happy medium so they don’t lose their identity overseas.
With the first coffee shop opened in Sydney CBD, Starbucks entered into Australian market in July of 2000 and then expanded rapidly to 85 coffee shops in the following years. However, in August of 2008, Starbucks Coffee Company Australia announced to shut down more than 60 of its 85 coffee shops and to date it has scaled down to 22 opened in Sydney, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Melbourne (Starbucks 2010).
The context change in form that Starbucks found itself competing with smaller chains that resembled its former pre-expansion model with competitors focusing in creating symbolic-expressive value and fast food restaurants that had started to offer specialty coffee with more aggressive advertisement at a lower cost. The competitive context changed for Starbucks because it’s focus in mass distribution channels and its retail footprint strategy stated its product within a standard performance product value; this affected the value perception of the product.
There are a number of different reasons why Starbucks failed in Australia and will be spoken of in more detail over the course of the report. Since World War II, Australians have developed a taste for coffee that many of the European migrants that moved to Australia brought with them.
Building a successful brand with multiple stores opening. Selling whole beans and premium priced coffee. They also new and understood their target market. Unlike many other coffee shops they sold the lifestyle around the coffee and made it an experience for their customers as apposed to it being just an addition to a donut in the morning. They made it a lifestyle choice and something to be desired as well as focusing very heavily on the customer service aspect of the industry. What was so compelling about Starbucks value proposition? What brand image did Starbucks develop during this period?
These partnerships have led to a meaningful increase in profits. Licensed stores, another type of partner for Starbucks, make up a greater portion of the corporation than company-operated stores. According to Starbucks’ Fiscal 2009 Annual Report, licensed stores make up 39% of total Starbucks stores in the US and 62% of Starbucks stores worldwide.
Starbuck’s global-level strategy, according to the case, is referred to as the Starbucks way. In the case it is stated that “the company finds local business partners in most foreign markets… It tests each country with a handful of stores in trendy districts, using experienced Starbucks managers.” The case further states that Starbucks “then sends local baristas to Seattle for 13 weeks of training. Then it starts opening stores by the dozen.”
Starbucks has become the world leader as the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 23,132 stores in 65 countries, including 12,937 in the United States, 2,004 in China, 1,416 in Canada, 1,135 in Japan and 849 in the United Kingdom (www.starbucks.com). Since its creation in Seattle, 1971, the coffee giant has several different product lines from pastries, flavored hot and cold drinks, whole-bean coffee, micro ground instant coffee, bear, wine (at some locations), entertainment to include music, books and grocery store packaged products. Their mission is to establish Starbucks as the premier
Licensed Stores Revenues: “revenues consist of product sales to licensed stores and royalties and other fees paid by licenses to use the Starbucks brand. Sales of coffee, tea and related products are generally recognized upon shipment to licensees.”
Every day millions of people all over the world walk into Starbucks for their java shot, but it is more than the overpriced coffee that brings people in day after day to their Starbucks stores across the world. Starbucks offers a setting and an environment created by the friendly and helpful staff. They are always around to provide excellent customer service. Managers at Starbucks put tremendous attention into hiring good “people people.” Their hiring and training process is designed to provide a customer-centric experience. People buy Starbucks for what it represents and the status symbol that comes along with it. It has been one of the fastest-growing brands in annual BusinessWeek surveys of the top 100 global brands. Starbucks '
Cognition gives the companies information on how consumers respond to different marketing stimuli they face for the products used. It has to do with customer’s thinking and how do they behave toward a particular product. To be more specific and also reading the book “cognition refers to the mental structures and processes involved in thinking, understanding, and interpreting stimuli and events.” (Peter & Olson, pg. 21)
Four million people worldwide make their daily stop at Starbucks in the desperate need for a coffee fix, just don’t forget to ask them to hold the side of exploitation, modern slavery and deforestation.
Starbucks’ success in the early 1990s could be mainly attributed to Howard Schultz, the one who took over the company from the Starbucks’ founders. There were three factors that contribute to the success of Starbucks. Firstly, Schultz had a very clear vision about the company, which was to cultivate the coffee drinking experience in the nation, making Starbucks the “Third Place” of ordinary citizens and the leading brand of the industry. With this vision, Schultz began to open a large number of new stores that widely spread over the nation, aiming to make the brand go public, be recognized and shared through word of mouth. The company barely spent money on advertising, but the brand became well known itself because of the large presence of
This report is on the Starbucks coffee shop company. Starbucks was founded around 45 years ago in 1971. Its first store was located at 2000 Western Avenue in Seattle, Washington until 1976, when it moved its operations to Pike Place Market, Elliott Bay, Seattle, Washington, U.S. where they began selling espresso coffee in 1986. The three founders Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker were former students of the University of San Francisco. Their plan was to sell high quality coffee beans and roasting equipment. They did not know at the onset the company would become so successful.