Strategic management analysis of Starbucks Assignment

Strategic management analysis of Starbucks - Assignment Example This study proposes to evaluate Starbucks from a strategic viewpoint. In this context of the study, the United States segment of the company will be evaluated. It will also shed light on the coffee industry of USA. The primary rationale behind the industry analysis is to measure attractiveness of this industry. The attractiveness of the industry will be gauged by using PORTER’s five forces framework analysis. Apart from that the external business environment will be also analysed using PESTEL analysis. The next portion will be about identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the company. This will be done with the help of a SWOT framework. In addition, the study will also emphasize on the capabilities, core competencies and resources. Starbucks: A Brief Overview The history of Starbucks Corporation dates back to the early 1970s, when the company was founded by the famous Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl (Starbucks, n.d.). Since the time of its foundation, the motto of the company has been to offer unique and special experience to the customers whenever they visit a Starbucks store and taste coffee. Starbucks is presently headquartered at Seattle, Washington, U.S (Dess, Lumpkin and Eisner, 2009, p.557). The company operates with around 6705 company owned stores, and 4,082 licensed stores throughout the United Stated. However from a global perspective, the company operates with 20,366 stores and has presence in 61 countries of the world. It sells hot drinks, foods and retail merchandising items. Starbucks has staggering employee strengths of 1, 50,000. As of financial year end 2012, the net revenue of the company was US$ 13.29 billion. Some of the major competitors of the company are Dunkin' Brands Group, Inc., McDonalds, Nestle, Yum Brands, KFC and Wendy's International, Inc (Yahoo Finance, n.d.). TASK A – Market Environment Analysis Micro Environment Analysis Coffee is admired as one of the most precious agricultural commodities and thu s the coffee industry is also witnessing strong growths globally. With strong and established players such as Starbucks and availability of mass customer makes it one of the potential industries of the world. Now to get deeper insights of the micro environment and to measure the attractiveness of the coffee industry of USA an in depth industry analysis will be carried out. To do so PORTER’S five forces framework will be employed. Porter’s five forces is one of the widely used tools to determine the competitive forces of the industry. The five forces of the industry as portrayed by Michael Porter are the threat of the new entrants within the industry, threat of the substitute products, and intensity of the existing rivalry within the industry, bargaining power of the suppliers and finally the bargaining power of the buyers. The analysis is shown below:- Threat of the substitute products The substitute products are the products that are not exactly the same as the core p roduct, but perform almost the similar function or provide the same benefit as given by the core product. In the context of Starbucks, the substitute products are soft drinks, energy drinks, coffee pills and caffeine. The consumption patterns

Rewrite and clarification of problem statement and Lit review Essay

Rewrite and clarification of problem statement and Lit review - Essay Example Social support is commonly employed as a means to pacify the tense individuals. Social support plays an important role in solving marital problems and has provided greatly improved the marital satisfaction among couples conventionally. Social support is very important tool for dealing with marital problems and often leads to positive outcomes. It is deemed good for the sustainability of marriage as well as the psychological wellbeing of the whole family (Cummings, 1998, p. 78). Owing to the noticeable usability of social support in sustaining a marriage, there has been blossoming interest in studying the role of social support in safeguarding marriages from potentially pathogenic effects of marital problems (Verhofstadt et al, 2005, p. 23). People even seek counseling when there is no proper need for it. However, it is a useful practice. One does not have to get extremely distressed in order to seek help (Goodman, 1999, p. 342). â€Å"Marriage  counseling  is a type of relations hip therapy that focuses on building and maintaining a strong, healthy marriage† (Foster, 2011). Social support providers have developed counseling programs to suit the needs of elderly couples who conventionally remain out of the focus. However, elderly couples feel much more reluctant than young couples to seek social support in order to improve their marital relationship. In context of this matter, factors that may influence the alliance of the elderly people with the social support provider become concerns of prime importance. In order for the marriage counselor to gain a firm understanding of the underlying issues causing trouble in the marital relationship of the client, he/she needs to know about various matters related to the married life of the client. It is a must for the marriage counselor to develop a certain level of intimacy with the couple so that the job can be done appropriately. It is highly unlikely for a client to make a collaborative relationship with a co unselor without the existence of trust between the two (Sheth and Sobel, 2000, p. 4). One way in which their reluctance can be overcome is by developing marital counseling programs particularly to suit the needs of elderly people. There are several factors that play a decisive role in determining the level of intimacy between the client and the marriage counselor. Such factors include but are not limited to the age, sex, race, language and culture of both the client and the marriage counselor. Culture that the client and the counselor mutually share directs adequate need-based practices and behaviors (Oladipo and Balogun, 2010, p. 5). Physical attributes influence the formation of initial impressions between strangers (Newcomb et al., 1965). According to Beutler et al. (1986), the chronological age greatly impacts the initial impressions that clients form of counselors. Because of their limited experience, many young counselors have little to no experience of interaction with an old client. The very lack of experience on the part of young counselors limits their comfort or interest in dealing with the old people (San, 2011). It is quite likely for an old client to be skeptical about the eligibility of a young marriage counselor in helping him improve his marital relationship with his spouse. Several theories provide the hypothesis about the views of old clients in need of