Starbuck's Planning

How did Starbucks grow from a small coffee bean and equipment shop in the early 70's to the mega coffee shop empire it is today? It started with Planning.

Shortly after Howard Schultz joined Starbucks in 1982 he wanted to start selling coffee in addition to just the beans and equipment. The owners didn't agree with Schultz and in 1885 he left Starbucks and started a coffee bar chain that 2 years later bought Starbucks and adopted the Starbucks name.

Schultz conducted his situational analysis by gathering information on Italian espresso bars. He then interpreted how that concept would work in America. Finally he summarized all the relevant data he needed to continue the planning process.

He then developed alternative goals and plans to achieve those goals. His principle goal of opening a coffee shop chain had two plan alternatives. One was to grow through acquisition of existing coffee shops. The other was through organic growth. Also he needed to choose between keeping a small coffee shop feel to the establishments or adopting a more industrial, fast food feel to the shops.

After evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the alternate plans, which was the goal and plan evaluation part of the planning process, he was ready for the next step.

Now came the time for a decision, which plan would work best to achieve the goal? Organic growth was chosen combined with the small coffee shop feel with its accompanying unique atmosphere. This was the selection part of the process.

To this day one of Starbucks biggest challenges is "How to stay small while growing big" (Stafford, 2007, Achieving Record Growth through People, Process and Technology, 8)

To implement the plan employee have always been well informed of the Starbucks ideals and are well motivated. Additionally, goal achievement is linked to above average rewards. In fact Starbucks was one of the first companies to offer even

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