Starbucks Case Study

Starbuck’s Job Design

Job Purpose is being a leader and role model by showing by example customer service

and community involvement.

Essential Functions: Set goals for team, recruit and hire team members and shift

supervisors, generate reports, train team members safety standards and health standards,

implement policies, lead your team by example, communicate and recognize any problems, act

quickly for solution, get involved in the community, recruit patrons feedback, delegate task, hold

group meetings, create employees work schedules, setting goals for the work group, developing

organizational capability, and modeling how we work together, monitors and manages store

staffing levels to ensure partner development and talent acquisition to achieve and maintain store

operational requirements, utilizes existing tools to identify and prioritize communications and

regularly uses discretion to filter communications to the store team, ensures adherence to

applicable wage and hour laws for nonexempt partners and minors, solicits customer feedback to

understand customer needs and the needs of the local community, uses all operational tools to

plan for and achieve operational excellence in the store, tools include Automated Labor

Scheduling, monthly status report, Quarterly Business Review, cash management, and inventory

management, utilizes management information tools and analyzes financial reports to identify

and address trends and issues in store performance, provide partners with coaching, feedback,

and developmental opportunities and building effective teams, order supplies, do inventory, open

and close the store, do financial reports, motivate staff, assist customers, act on customer loyalty,

do market surveys, make deposits, and maintain employee communication within the store and

other store in the region and with the corporate office.

Job Specifications

Education Experience, 2 years’ experience in retail business, 1 year experience in

customer service, and experience in team leading. 3 or more years of experience in a role that

requires frequent interaction with customers, fulfilling the requests of customers and

responsibility for addressing customer issues, questions and suggestions or a Bachelor’s degree

or higher in business or hospitality management; or 4 or more years of US military service, 2 or

more years of management experience as a direct supervision over 2 or more employees,

responsibility for training and developing teams, responsibility over a P&L; inventory

management, other budget or sales target, responsibility for managing labor costs (e.g.,

scheduling hours, controlling overtime, etc.) or a Bachelor degree or higher in business or

hospitality management or 4 or more years of US military service.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities, Ability to work flexible hours, morning,

afternoon, evening, holidays, must be dependable, have good people skills, self- motivated,

ability to delegate task, outgoing, customer service oriented, team player, energetic, ability to

communicate clearly and effectively, ability to rapidly analyze, maintain vendor relationships,

knowledge of the retail environment, strong problem-solving, team-building skills, ability to

work in a fast-paced environment, ability to deliver excellent customer service, working

knowledge of financial reports, experience in inventory management, ability to problem solve,

strong organization and planning skills, ability to be a team leader, strong people skills, ability to

work under pressure.

Working conditions, Constant standing/walking, occasional stooping, kneeling or

crawling, occasional pushing, pulling, lifting or carrying up to 40 lbs., occasional ascending or

descending ladders, stairs, ramps, constant computer/POS Register and bar equipment usage,

frequent, continual, intermittent flexing or rotation of the wrist(s) and spine, constant reaching,

turning, and performing precision work around bar area, constant receiving detailed information

through oral communication, constant talking, expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the

spoken word, occasional Distinguishing, with a degree of accuracy, differences or similarities in

intensity or quality of flavors and/or odors, constant clarity of vision at near and/or far distances.

Starbucks is an equal opportunity employer of all qualified individuals, including minorities,

women, veterans & individuals with disabilities.

Starbucks Case Study Structure

I can recall, my parents saying they could not start the day without a cup a coffee. Coffee

for them is what alcohol is to a drunk, or candy is to a child, sheer heaven. As one can imagine,

coffee was a big word in my house. Even as I am a coffee hater, when I think of coffee,

Starbucks flashes in my mind.

In 1984, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, used his business savvy and insight and

created a niche in the market place. He had a vision of a coffee house being a place for

conversation and a sense of community, a place between work and home.

Starbucks, in the beginning was a simple structure. To target a wider spectrum of consumer, they

expanded and diversified their products line offered, and the growth forced the company to

rethink their organizational design, which involves numerous activities that include designing

jobs, departmentalizing decisions, completing the company’s structure, and outlining the best

structural configuration (Reilly, Minnick, Baack, 2011), thus the new division structure was
implemented changing the once centralized company to an organic/decentralized company

focusing on the relationship between the headquarters and the divisions.

Division structures are efficient and effective by departmentalization grouping of function,

product, geographic region, customer, strategic business unit, and matrix.

Starbucks has departmentalized by function and geographic region. The company was

divided into two regions of the world, Starbucks U.S. and Starbucks Coffee International (SCI),

until 2011, when they departmentalized again and restructured into three global regions, China

and Asia Pacific; the second, United States, Canada, Mexico, Latin America; and third, Europe,

United Kingdom, Middle East, Russia, and Africa.

They decentralizing their powers of authority to trickle downward from the executives

who oversee the company from its headquarters and district managers around the county who

oversee regional groupings of stores and to the store managers who are in charge of and have

shift supervisors who fill in when absent, who oversee the rest of employees.

With decentralization, the store manager has full autonomy to make their own decisions

pertaining to what is best for its own store according to that market- place. The advantages of not

having any interference from upper management, allows for quick response to situations in

resolving customer complaints, which promotes customer service.

The mangers encourage employees to participation with the decision making process.

The belief is this empowers them resulting in making them feel as if they have more input in the

direction of the organization, thus creating more productivity. Starbucks built the company on

open communication. The company relies on its patrons to post their views and share ideas at

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com , My Starbucks Idea, for feedback on ways they can be better.

 The store is departmentalized by function and with keeping cost down, the store manager

cross-trains their employees to do multifunction task. If the stores serving food departmentalized

by product, they would have to hire more employees; one to run the bakery, one for the

sandwiches, one for the coffee, one for the tea, and so on. Even though, the store would run just

like an oiled machine, it would not be cost effective.

Centralizing power would have made the leaders accountable for the financial problems

in 2008 and allowed them to be able to act quickly with a plan to either market aggressively or to

pull back and cut cost by implementing an across the board plan stating strict spending

guidelines for all managers of the stores in the U.S.

Starbuck is continually looking for new and improved ways to make money. As profits

rise and falls, the company reevaluates its organizational design, they strive for excellence to

inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.

References

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doi:10.1177/1464993413504354

It's Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles From a Life at Starbucks. (2010).

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Mind Tools Ltd (2014). Mintzberg's Organizational Configurations - Strategy Skills Training

from MindTools.com. Retrieved from ttp://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_54.htm#

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Starbucks Corporation (2014). Retail Careers | Starbucks Coffee Company. Retrieved from

http://www.starbucks.com/careers/retail-careers

Starbucks Corporation (2014), My Starbucks Idea, Retrieved from

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com