Word: schultze
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...what customers really want? Are most people looking for an experience, the "third place" community feel that Schultz likes to talk about, or do most of them just want a good cup of joe, pronto? "Howard is a brilliant visionary and a genuinely compassionate human being, but he runs the danger of being trapped by his past," says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management who has extensively studied CEOs. "Entrepreneurs sometimes don't grow with the business. You shouldn't pretend the model can't keep evolving." Schultz is fond of saying that the current energy...
...Schultz moved swiftly. On Jan. 30, he announced that Starbucks would close 100 underperforming stores and curtail U.S. store openings to about 1,175 in 2008, down 34% from the prior year. The breakfast sandwiches were toast in North America. To get focused on the long term, it would stop reporting comp-store sales to Wall Street. Then, at the March 19 annual meeting, the company laid out its initiatives to reinvigorate the "coffee experience." Some of the projects had been kicked around, but with Schultz back in the CEO chair, everything started to get done more rapidly. "The rate...
Only a figure like Schultz can pull off such bold action, says Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, an assistant professor of finance at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business who has studied the return of founder CEOs. "A founder may come in, and because he started the company, people more readily accept these things," says Fahlenbrach. That's clearly what's happening at Starbucks. "Howard, frankly, is the only person who could do what we needed to do," says global strategy head Gass. That courage was on full display on Feb. 26, when Starbucks closed...
...coffee--Roberts is jazzed about a series of prints from artists in Rwanda, where Starbucks is opening a regional farmer-support center--the company is trying to re-emphasize its heritage. "We haven't been as good at telling our story as we once had in the past," says Schultz. "The good news is, unlike many other companies, this is not a story that has to be invented. It's real...
...Schultz, keeping in touch with the past is key to future success. Remembering who you are is the first step to becoming who you should be. Sometimes in the morning, he goes down to the original Starbucks at Pike Place. Before the store opens, Schultz lets himself in. He puts his hands on the wooden counter and thinks about how he felt at the beginning, what it was he was trying to do. Over the past few months, Schultz has also taken to passing around a memo he wrote in 1986. The letterhead says Il Giornale--Starbucks would come later...