Starbucks Case Analysis

I’ve chosen the Starbucks Corporation on which to do my case assignment for the session. I first became interested in Starbucks while working on a paper for a previous marketing class. I became intrigued at the entrepreneurial spirit that such a large corporation had managed to maintain throughout its massive expansion. Starbucks corporation, unlike many of its now-defunct rivals, has done an outstanding job since its meager beginnings in 1970 with the execution of its strategic process; resulting in it currently owning 40% of the specialty coffee market and boosting annual sales exceeding $7 billion according to Burt Helm. Historic successes and recent turmoil within the company, including a near 40% decline in 2007 in profits (Sullivan 1), has once again piqued my interest in this American company.

For this first assignment, our tasks start with identifying the need for diagnosis, moving on to evaluating several organizational models that are used and have been developed for just such analysis, and finally determining if these models would be effective if used by Starbucks to determine its way ahead.

The importance of Diagnosis

In conducting research I found an interesting quote that I believe sums up the importance of the essential task analysis. “Knowing yourself is one of the most challenging and important tasks of your life. If you know who you are and what you want, you will have a better chance of figuring out how to achieve your own success, happiness and personal fulfillment” (Berkeley.edu, 1). One can easily substitute all personal references with a business perspective and ascertain the importance of analysis. If a business does not know who it is, it will not know what changes it needs to make in order to get where they want to go. Falletta defines analysis as, “assessing an organizations current level of functioning in order to design appropriate change interventions” (Faletta 3). Essentially what Falletta is saying is that by determining what or where an organization is at, as far as infrastructure, procedures, leadership, etc. its leadership can determine what changes need to be made to achieve the desired objectives. Another important benefit of conducting analysis is that “Diagnosis confirms that a problem actually exists” (Faletta 3). In conducting such an analysis, a business can search out the underlying or root causes and then use this information to inform members on how to make the necessary changes. A third point to consider is to look at the business as one whole entity and not the sum of its individual parts. Faletta states that business analysis should occur similar to the medical profession