How Starbucks Conquered the World

A Case Study of the Biggest Coffee Store in the Globe

Starbucks Coffee: An Introduction

Everybody is now looking at the amazing development of Starbucks Coffee Corporation. From being a modest nine-store small-and-medium enterprise in 1987 the Seattle-based coffee empire has grown into a multinational espresso chain by year-end 2004, with over 7,000 locations around the world, more than half of which were company-owned operating in the United States. The unparalleled rise of Starbucks to claim the number one spot of the global coffee market did not just spawn the proliferation of espresso bars around the world but also disproved the traditional business concept of many snooty capitalists more than two decades ago. The Starbucks' story is indeed a testimony that there is no such business lexicography that contains the ABCs for corporate success, and that not all practical and successful business tips are taught in school. The reason for this is that business is not just about applying all the academic aspects of it; it is but about doing the right thing.

Thus, doing the right thing was effectively applied by Starbucks founder and chief global strategist Howard Schultz upon realizing that there was much more to coffee trade than just retailing ground and roasted coffee beans to java-drinkers (Thompson, Hawk and Shah 2004, p. C6). Schultz knew that the first Starbucks owners totally missed the right button, as he realized, after witnessing how espresso bar owners did their business in Milan, the bigger and brighter promise of gourmet coffee market. Totally moved by his discovery and business plan, Schultz intransigently tried to convince former Starbucks' owners Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker to also open espresso bars apart from selling roasted coffee beans to costumers. In 1984, the company opened a 300 square feet coffee bar in Seattle although the owners had no intention to take Schultz's proposal seriously. By the following year, the frustrated Schultz left Starbucks to open a specialty coffee company with the help of a lawyer friend.