Starbucks and Globalization

Starbucks and Globalization

Howard Schultz was brilliant man who had a unique taste in coffee and decided he wanted to share it with his local countrymen, so in 1971 he opened up a small coffee store that he named Starbucks. Little did he know that his little coffee store would become so popular that he actually brought in other products such as sweets, sandwiches, and other delicious drinks, and in 1982 he expanded it to include espresso bars. He was then inspired, by a trip to Milan, to recreate the Italian coffee shop atmosphere and by 1987 there were 17 Starbucks coffees shops and cafes. The shops and cafes were a tremendous success and they spread from the northwest through the united states like wildfire and in 1992 Starbucks went public (in the stock market). By 1995 there were over 676 of Schultz’s cafes all over the U.S. so he decided to expand his borders and go global. His first overseas cafй was opened in Tokyo, Japan in late 1995, the very same year in which he released Starbuck’s first frappuccino (which pushed Starbucks up to number one in the coffee/ice cream market). As the years went on, the number of locations practically doubled every year and he had created a cafй that now has over 7300 locations worldwide, with over 25million regular customers. Schultz took a small idea and worked with it until his small idea became the most popular globalized coffee chain.

Ever since Starbucks went public and expanded into other countries many newspapers and other media sources have been referring to it as a globalized company, but many people do not even know what globalized means. Globalization is a business/invest fund’s predisposition to expand from their local area to surrounding countries or states and over seas to other continents, thus connecting and expanding several other markets. Globalization is a type of “social organization” that allows the world to appear “borderless” where countries and companies create more capital while sharing their technology (sometimes creating a new technology never previously seen) and allowing people, and their ideology, and goods, to travel through the world with much more ease than before (it also encourages the mixing of cultures, and the peaceful interaction between people and the exchange of their goods).

Globalization evolved from capitalism and colonialism. When capitalism became popular it did not take people very long to realize that poorer countries would be easily taken over, so they decided to conquer several of them and make the countries into colonies. They did that and forced the natives of those countries to learn their language and culture which can be considered a positive or a negative action. The people of the countries enjoyed the benefits of a better economy (most times) and a stronger government, but they had to give up their culture, or at least they had to mix it with the conqueror’s culture thus making a whole other culture. Even though the colonies lost some of their culture and national identity, they were given a better life, so many people say the loss was worth it to get the gain and this is the idea that spurred on globalization. Now globalization has a tendency create a homogenous atmosphere in the countries that it has spread to, and seems to kind of lessen cultural tensions and allow people to feel like home no matter where in the world they actually are.

Globalization started off with just other countries bringing less fortunate or weaker countries under their belt and giving them a little boost (for a price of course, otherwise its not capitalism) but now large businesses and corporations, such as Starbucks, are using this to expand their area of profit. These large companies’ entrance into a developing nation has been claimed to help the developing country try to catch up to the industrialized countries by creating thousands of new job opportunities and bringing newer, and possibly better, technology that the would not be able to acquire on their own. Globalization also weakens the national identity and allows large businesses (or countries) to take over the smaller ones and force their way of life on everyone else, like a slightly less violent version of imperialism, that lets the richer business (or country) work its way around expensive shipping charges and embargos (thus kind of cheating the countries it claims to help).

Schultz’s Starbucks is a world leading retailer and even considers itself to be a global corporation, and still to this day have no franchises. They have partnerships in about 32 countries and give most of the globalization profits to their international partners. They believer that through cooperation, dedicated human resources, great customer satisfaction, good company image, good values, and corporate culture, they can expand their company while adding in a