The Starbucks Corporation Essay -- essays research papers

1. Starbucks Corporations rise seems to be out of a storybook for Howard Schultz. Starbucks began selling whole bean coffee in 1971 under Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker. Business grew at a slow and steady pace until Schulz joined the company as manager of retail sales and marketing. After a visit to Milan, Italy, Schultz was inspired by a vision. He saw how important coffee was to the romantic culture of Italy. He believed that if Americans had such places to socialize over a cup of coffee, espresso, cappuccino, etc., that they would pay good silver for his quality product. The owners of the Starbucks Corporation were not as excited and did not want to operate in the restaurant business. Schultz filmed these coffee bars and began to pitch his ideas to investors. By April of 1985, his first coffee bar had opened and by 1987 he had bought the Starbucks name. Although the first few years of the company were less than profitable, Schultz looked at the long-term opportuniti es and never permit his idea die. Within a few years sales shot up 84%. This left room for expansion. By 1995 there were almost two hundred stores opened across the U.S. and Starbucks was already looking international at this point and began operations to look to Asia. Starbucks now has opened bars all over the ground and is one of the most successful businesses in the world.2. The topics we have been looking at include the external environments of businesses and deciding on what a company is to do in the...