Just got back from my morning run. No, not the one I should be doing. The one where I get up, get in the car and drive 15 minutes or so to the local Starbucks, pick up some morning refreshments for the family and head back home. Everyone is happy with me and we're all kicking back now in our own little worlds and enjoying the experience.
Sometimes I wonder how it ever got to be this way. Do you? I mean, 10 years ago, it was as simple as clicking on the coffee maker when you woke up and filling up your travel mug. Now, every day has an extra 30 minutes in for the stop to Starbucks. Is there something that special going on there that I go out of my way every day?
I saw lots of traffic this week in the news and through the blogging community about Starbucks new 'transformation plan'. With Howard Schultz now back at the helm of the company after a two year period of decline in performance, the company is getting back to basics. John Moore at Brand Autopsy (a former member of the marketing department at both Starbucks and Whole Foods) wrote a very comphrensive analysis of the recently announced six step initiative to get the company back on track and growing again in Starbucks Transformational Agenda.
I have my own opinion on the merits of these new strategies. Many others do as well. But unlike most, I'm less focused on the particulars and their impacts on performance near-term (learned a long time ago there are no silver bullets and great 'new' plans). To me, the more important point is that the company and its management are now clearly focused back on creating a better experience for their customers in a way that leverages their distinctive competence. In our experience, that's the real key to success and what separates tuned in companies from tuned out ones.
It's easy to see in hindsight. Starbucks has been doing what lots of companies do ... chasing outcomes. Looking at metrics like average same day sales and products per square foot lead you down some strange paths. Schultz even admitted as much in a letter from the board about a year ago in which he worried about the company 'losing its core'. The experience got cluttered up with products and even aroma's that were not very inviting to the folks who had become loyal customers. In short, it seemed that they were building their business from the inside-out, using corporate math vs. real field experience that captured compelling reasons why people do (or don't) buy from them.
So, now they're taking aggressive steps to re-connect. Re-creating an authentic part of the experience with new espresso makers and brewing machines ... and creating an emphasis on leveraging social media to interact more frequently with their market. John Moore gives them high marks for these moves in the long-term but predicts little to no impact short-term. He may be right (he would definately know more about this than I would) but I liken this more to the systematic, foundational changes that Jobs created when he re-entered Apple, Gerstner when he took over IBM and Hurd when he took over HP.
At the end of the day, its simple. Create a product or service that your buyers want to buy and the rest takes care of itself. Schultz seems to understand that and the fact that he's tuned in to this simple premise bodes well for the success of his plan.
