mba510 starbucks

mba510 starbucks

Foreword
Starbucks Corporation was established in the 1970s. It is a coffee company based in Seattle, Washington that purchases, sells, and roasts whole bean coffee and coffee drinks through an international chain of retail outlets. From a start as a seller of packaged, premium specialty coffees, Starbucks has evolved into a company known for their coffee, where people can purchase hot and cold beverages, food items, packaged whole bean and ground coffee. Starbucks is credited with altering the way people around the world envision and consume coffee, and its success has attracted worldwide attention. Starbucks Corporation is the largest coffeehouse in the United States. Starbucks is dominating any coffeehouse that is based in the US with about 7,500 company-owned and about 5,600 licensed stores in 40 countries, making a total of 13,168 stores worldwide (Starbucks Company, 2007).
Over the last several years, Starbucks has been expanding its operations internationally.   Starbucks started its international subsidiary in 1995. Currently Starbucks has coffee bars in Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, Greece, Oman, Mexico, and numerous other foreign countries.   Even though research indicates that only seven percent of Americans have tried its products, Starbucks believes it needs to expand internationally to continue their projected growth rate (Starbucks IP, L.P. (Ed.). 2007).
The company foresees a future with over 25,000 coffeehouses, 10,000 of these coffeehouses are in North America. Starbucks projects to go overseas with 1,500 coffeehouses in Central and South America. “An experienced partner abroad can help identify locations, sift through tax issues and give Starbucks stores more community appeal,” said the president of Starbucks Coffee International, Peter Maslen. Starbucks has previously had setbacks with the overseas coffeehouses (Helen Jung, 2007).
A key opportunity for Starbucks is a new licensing agreement with Unilever to manufacture, market, and...