Summary

Starbucks is one of the largest chains of coffee shops in the world, started their business in the early 80s as a tiny chain of Seattle coffee shops, grew rapidly in the 90s and now owns 5,689 coffee shops in 28 countries. This chain of coffee shops is very well managed by a well seasoned management team popularly known as H2O, because of Howard Schultz (Chairman and Chief Global Strategist), Howard Behar ( Head of North American Operations), and Orion Smith (CEO).
Although, the company has expanded enormously, since it went public in 1991 but has also encountered a number of problems. The problem it faced had it mounted in home and abroad. The company had its success through the baby boomers in the 90s, but now the Generation X is not liking the environment of the shop and the young generation feel out of place in the coffee shop, above all the price of coffee seems to be little expensive to them.
The Starbucks did not have much competition like Mc Donald’s and the likes in the initial days but now they have competitors such as Tully’s coffee shop. They also had problems of employees’discontentment. The expensive and aggressive marketing strategy has given Starbucks market dominancy. They earn $181.2 million in the year 2000, sales were still growing but it started growing in a decreasing rate, because their aggressive strategy and attitude towards competitors not only they grew rivalry with local business people but they lost customer.
It was difficult for them to maintain their growth of 20% only on domestic market. So, they opted for going overseas. They maintain some aggressive attitude in other countries also. The largest overseas market of Starbucks was in Japan when they had 368 shops, UK was their second largest overseas market, and by the end of 2001 they started operation in the Middle East. They want to have 10,000 outlets abroad by next