Impacts of Starbucks’s mission, vision and primary stakeholders on its overall success
Introduction
The Starbuck’s CorporationCorporation is a multinational chain of roastery reserves and coffeehouses with a headquarter in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest coffeehouse in the world and represents the second wave of coffee culture in the United States (Mason, Cole & Goza, 2017).
The Corporation’sCorporation’s mission statement.
The mission of Starbucks coffee is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit-one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” (Abiodun, 2010)The mission points out the main focus of the corporation, in which the company’s consumers are given priority and emphasis according to Starbuck’s mission. Through the company’s mission, the CorporationCorporation can nurture and inspire the human spirit from the company employees to its management. For the company to adequately emphasize its mission, Starbuck has maintained a small company culture that creates warmth and rapport in the CorporationCorporation.
Additionally, the company’s mission statement extends the culture of warmth and rapport to its customers. The Corporation’sCorporation’s mission statement also emphasizes personal and gradual approach. The “one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” shows how the company places meaningful impact on its customers and employee, which contribute to the success of the CorporationCorporation (Abiodun, 2010).
Starbucks ‘ corporate vision statement.
The vision of the company is to “establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles while we grow.” (Abiodun, 2010). The statement has several components which are much relevant to the growth of the business, such as:
- Growth
- Uncompromising principles
- Premier purveyance
- World’s finest coffee
Impacts of primary Stakeholders in the overall success of Starbuck’s
Primary stakeholders of the company focus on corporate social responsibility, especially those that are concerned with the overall sustainability of the business. They are concerned in advocating for the demands of the other stakeholders such as the suppliers, employees, customers, government, and investors. The primary stakeholders of Starbucks prioritize employees‘ interests or demands by giving salaries even above the legally mandated wages. At times, the company motivates its employees by giving scholarships in collaboration within the Arizona State University (Abiodun, 2010). The scholarships offer the employees an opportunity to further knowledge and skills to improve their performance in the company. The strategy aims at ensuring that the company’s activities are attended effectively, thus resulting to success of the business.
Customers-The primary stakeholders in Starbucks are concerned with offering quality products and services to its customers, such as the most excellent coffee and coffee-related beverages. They also emphasize a warm relationship with its customers, which boosts its reputation and ensure success in the competitive market.
Suppliers- Starbuck’s suppliers comprise of the coffee farmers and wholesale supply firms. The primary stakeholders of the company have ensured that more of the company suppliers are included in the supply chain. Additionally, Starbuck’s Coffee and Farmers Equity (CAFÉ) has ensured transparency to its wholesale suppliers, which ensures that farmers are paid and remain motivated to providing quality products to the company, which contributes to its overall success.
Starbuck’s SWOT analysis.
Strengths.
The main strengths of the company include;
- Extensive supply chain-the Starbucks’s extensive global supply chain plays a significant role in ensuring that all operations in the company are supported. For instance, the worldwide network of the Starbuck’s suppliers is selected carefully based on quality and variety of coffee such as Arabica (Helms, & Nixon, 2010).
- The company has also diversified its businesses to minimize the industrial risks and effects of the market.
- Strong brand image-Starbucks has one of the most popular and world’s strongest brands (Helms & Nixon, 2010). It has experienced continuous population growth of its loyal customers, who have resulted in the stability of the businesses of the company.
Weaknesses
Starbucks has some of the internal weaknesses which have limited or reduced the capabilities of the businesses (Helms, & Nixon, 2010). The weaknesses include:
- High prices of products and services- Most of the company’s products are expensive due to the urge of the company to maximize profit. As a result, most of the company’s products have become less affordable, thus limiting the company’s share in the competitive market (Helms & Nixon, 2010).
- Most of the company’s products have generalized standards. This weakness reduces the flexibility of coffeehouse and coffee chain businesses. For instance, the generalization standards of the company’s crafted beverages have significantly reduced the cultural alignment of the products with the local target markets and other consumers associated with the product (Helms, & Nixon, 2010).
- Imitability of Starbuck’s products-most of the local competitors are capable of producing goods similar to those produced by Starbuck and dispose them in the competitive market at relatively lower prices, thus reducing the demand for Starbuck’s products (Helms, & Nixon, 2010).
Opportunities.
- Starbucks has the potential to increase its revenue by expanding its businesses in the developing market.
- It can also increase its stability by diversification of its businesses. It’s through diversification that the company can minimize its over-dependence on its current industries and develop new and strong industries (Helms & Nixon, 2010).
- The company can also ensure its stability by building strong relations and alliances or partnerships with other firms.
Threats in Starbuck’s Corporation
Threats are external forces or factors that limit or reduce the performance of businesses (Helms & Nixon, 2010). In Starbucks coffee company, the following threats were identified:
- The company faces stiff completion from other coffee sellers who dispose of similar products at relatively low prices.
- Imitations of products and services provided by Starbucks by other coffee sellers.
- Starbuck’s environment supports the development and operation of other local coffeehouses as opposed to the already developed multinational coffeehouse chains, which will limit the growth of Starbucks as an international company (Helms, & Nixon, 2010).
Recommendations.
The Starbucks coffee company environment has faced diverse challenges, which re mostly associated with the moderate diversification of the company businesses. The extensive coffeehouse chain businesses have also been affected by issues of imitation of Starbucks, competition, and social trends, which limits international companies in local markets.
For Starbucks Company to protect its businesses against massive imitation of its products and services, the company needs to aggressively innovate in its production process to come up with more refined and unique products that will not be easily imitated.
Secondly, the company needs to revisits it’s pricing strategies to maintain and attract more customers. The company needs to consider the average income of its customers and the prices adopted by the low-cost sellers when determining the suitable price of its products.
Additionally, the company should implement creative branding and marketing strategies, which will build the corporate image of the organization. The excellent image will reduce sociocultural opposition against the CorporationCorporation and ensure the extension and growth of the company (Helms, & Nixon, 2010).
Communication plan to be utilized by Starbucks Company to reach its stakeholders.
Advertising-The primary stakeholders in the company can present its ideas of moderating prices of products and services through social media platforms such as television, radio, magazines, and newspaper. To reach the local customers, the company can use weekly ads in their industries and online banner ads, particularly on the sites that the local consumers frequently visit.
Public relations-The aim of this strategy is to create goodwill between the target segments and the organization. The company can use unpaid promotional opportunities: press and media coverage, articles, presentations in events and conferences, and winning awards.
Personal selling-The company should encourage face-to-face interactions with its stakeholders where possible to understand their needs and how their services or products create value to the consumers.
Sales promotion-the company can boost the sale of products offering discounts to its customers.
Efforts made by Starbucks Corporation to be a responsible corporate citizen
The social responsibility strategy of Starbucks Company was based on community, environment, and Ethical sourcing pillars.
Impacts on Community.
For the company to positively impact the community it works in and with, it has developed community stores that have partnered with local nonprofits (William, Werther, & Chandler, 2010). The stores are aimed at attending to the needs of the local communities at relatively low costs. The company has also provided training opportunities to interested youths in the local communities. Additionally, it came up with Starbuck’s Foundation, a 5o1c3 which is aimed at strengthening the community further.
Ethical sourcing.
This pillar dictates how the company purchases its products from the suppliers. They ensure that their tea, cocoa, coffee, and other manufactured products are ethically and responsibly purchased and produced (William et al., 2010). They claim that the success of the company is directly linked to the success of suppliers and farmers. Thus, they can only buy those products from manufacturers and farmers who stick to certain predetermined standards of ethical treatment.
Environment
The company recognizes the environment as an essential business partner and has made several efforts to minimize environmental impacts. They have made significant attempts to conserving both energy and water, recycling processes, and came up with strategies to address climate change (William et al., 2010).
References
Helms, M. M., & Nixon, J. (2010). Exploring SWOT analysis-where are we now? A review of academic research from the last decade. Journal of Strategy and Management, 3(3), 215-251.
Mason, A., Cole, T., & Goza, N. (2017). Starbucks: A case study of effective management in the coffee industry. Journal of International Management Studies, 17(1), 43-48.
Abiodun, A. J. (2010). The interface between corporate vision, mission, and production and operations management. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 10(2), 18-22.
D’Urso, S. C. (2018). Towards the final frontier: Using strategic communication activities to engage the latent public as a key stakeholder in a corporate mission. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 12(3), 288-307.
William B. Werther, J., & Chandler, D. (2010). Strategic corporate social responsibility: Stakeholders in a global environment. SAGE.