Starbucks

September 30, 2006Starbucks, named after the first Mate in Moby Dick, began in the early 1970’s in Seattle, Washington (Charles W. L. Hill, 2007). Three visionaries, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker began selling coffee beans in Pike Place Market and eventually opened five stores and purchased a roasting facility. The three owners of Starbucks met another man, Howard Shultz, who eventually was hired by Starbucks to bring his marketing skills to their organization. While working for Starbucks, Howard Shultz went on a trip to Italy. While in Italy Shultz noticed how coffee and coffee bars were apart of daily Italian life. Shultz realized that the coffee culture Italians experienced could be brought back to the United States and marketed by Starbucks. Shultz brought his idea to the founding owners of Starbucks; however, he was met with resistance. Undaunted, in 1985 Shultz decided to proceed with his vision and opened his first coffee bar I1 Giornale. In 1987, the owners decided to sell Shultz their firm and Starbucks became the name of Shultz’s coffee bars.

In the early years, Starbucks failed to turn a profit. Shultz refused to let his dream die and stuck to his conviction ‘not to sacrifice long-term integrity and values, for short-term profit” (Charles W. L. Hill, 2007). By the fifth year Starbucks began to see profits and Shultz took Starbucks public in 1992. Since 1992, Starbucks has grown to over 5,688 outlets in twenty-eight countries and sales have climbed on average of twenty percent