SaMa

Starbucks is a world leader in serving Coffee and other hot coffee-based beverages. They become leader not only  by serving coffee with smile, but also integrating lot of their backend value-chain functions. According to resource-based approach firms should vertically integrate into business functions in which they currently enjoy a competitive advantage. Starbucks used this strategy in one of the best ways one company can use. They collaborated with farmers in major coffee producing regions all over the world to produce and maintain required level of production. They made sure that they provide all the technology and financial help to these farmers to produce best quality beans. Next step would be bringing those beans to roasting facilitates and Starbucks committed people, time, and other resources to optimize its logistics to improve the efficiency of supply chain. This gave Starbucks an upper hand over competition in lowering the cost and improve the quality by directly deliveri...

Although there is no clear evidence of Starbucks collusion, but we can guess it employs strategies to discourage competitors to directly compete. Think about, how many coffee places we know within our own city ? Maybe 3 or 4, and Starbucks is mostly one of them. So why is it this way ? Starbucks is continually sending soft signals but providing good quality of product with excellent service which is consistent almost every Starbucks store. Other food-chain competitors such as McDonalds and Dunkin are focused on food items and Coffee as side item, whereas for Starbucks Coffee is the main product and even Starbucks not trying to enter food market whole heartily. Starbucks strategy about food is just to offer minimum options with just enough food which would go along coffee. This strategy might not be threating to McDonalds or Dunkin, because as food is side items for Starbucks, Coffee is side item for them. Although this non-forcible market co-operation working well for these companie...

Flexibility is an asset in uncertain markets and coffee choices are very uncertain. To be leader in Coffee serving industry Starbucks maintained its lead by providing variety of drink and many customization options, such as serving drinks with soy or coconut milk for non-dairy consumers, cold healthy beverages for health conscious consumers, non-coffee drinks for non-coffee consumers, adding extra shots for a small fee, using raw or engineered sugar or honey as sweetener, adding flavors such as cinnamon or vanilla, and many other customizations.  With so many options Starbucks suits majority of consumers. Starbucks is also flexible adapting to consumers tastes. They listen to consumer preferences and adjust their offerings. Not only start new beverages, but they are also ready to discontinue if some drinks not appeal to customers very well. Since they are expanding in China and India, they have introduced many Tea beverages, both hot and cold. Chai Latte is something like Chai, t...

To evaluate how Starbucks is different from others, we can ask a questions, Why would a customer wants to go to Starbucks when Dunkin is nearby too? Lets think of this questions from different personas.  Coffee Lovers: Since Starbucks sells coffee, so it might attract lot of Coffee Lover too. Since Starbucks never compromise on beans quality and always use best breed of beans, Arabica, it make sense for coffee enthusiast to go to Starbucks, as he or she might not get same taste somewhere else. Here quality of beans is the differentiator.  Convenience: Some people don't care too much about fine quality, they look for convenience. Since Starbucks has 15,243 stores in USA covering all major cities, it is very easy to find the Starbucks near-by. Apart from that, Starbucks also has mobile app for advance ordering, make it super fast for customers to pick the coffee.  Habits: Building and shifting taste for Coffee is not easy. Starbucks is selling coffee ssice1983, and with s...