I would submit that the the number one
characteristic in building a great
enduring brand in any business today is
the currency of trust trust with your
people trust with your customers and
obviously trust with the shareholders
but in addition to that I think the
rules of engagement especially for a
bricks and mortar retailer today as a
result of the Amazon effect and
e-commerce and mobile commerce there are
a lot less people physically shopping in
the streets and in the malls in America
and around the world today so what does
that mean that means that every retailer
must create a primary reason for their
customers to come to their stores as
opposed to just intercepting traffic the
experience that we create has to be
multi-sensory not only selling coffee
creating fantastic customer service but
also engaging the customer in an
emotional way both in our stores in
digital and ways in which we can be as
relevant outside of our stores as we are
inside a number of years ago many people
who cover the company said Starbucks is
has becoming a tech company because we
became so good at creating this mobile
application in this mobile ecosystem and
the flywheel effect of what it meant for
the bottom line the truth is we were
never engaged in becoming a tech company
but in trying to become relevant with
Millennials and our core customers we
had to recognize early on that we had to
make significant investments in
technology and specifically in the
mobile application the same is true now
we’re not going to become a media
company but every consumer brand must
have the capability to be as good in
their ancillary aspects of customer
touch points as they are within their
core business and the last piece of this
is we all have to answer the question
what is our core purpose and reason for
being and then answer the question in
the affirmative that any of these
actions or strategic points of view like
like up standards
does it thread back to the core purpose
and reason for being and in our case
we’re constantly asking ourselves will
this initiative make our people and our
customers proud this is not going to
make Starbucks more money it’s not
however we have been a very successful
public company over many years
performance is the price of admission
and I think people recognize that all
these things ladder up to the equity of
the brand the equity the experience and
what we’re trying to do to maintain our
relevance not only in the US but in 75
countries around the world in 25
thousand stores and the question is how
do we do that and we have to kind of
reject the status quo push for
reinvention and self renewal and also I
think and this is important not
everything’s gonna work and as soon as
something does not work
the answer is fail fast and move on I
think in large part the success that we
have enjoyed is directly linked to the
fact that the lay customer today has so
much information and so much insight
into a company’s practices not only the
features and benefits of their product
or how much things cost but also the
values of the company and I think
there’s so many choices and we all have
competition the consumer today wants to
support those companies whose values are
compatible with their own this year when
we provided free college tuition for
every single Starbucks person and we
paid for it the level of pride and
adulation and relationship between our
customers and our partners those scores
went up and our business went up now
that wasn’t the intent but the
manifestation of the things we’re trying
to do as a company which are not all
based on the bottom line over many years
have proved to be successful and have
added value to the market cap and
shareholder value so I’m very proud of
what we’re doing this is not for
marketing it’s not for money it’s for
trying to do what we think is right and
used Starbucks scale for good
characteristic in building a great
enduring brand in any business today is
the currency of trust trust with your
people trust with your customers and
obviously trust with the shareholders
but in addition to that I think the
rules of engagement especially for a
bricks and mortar retailer today as a
result of the Amazon effect and
e-commerce and mobile commerce there are
a lot less people physically shopping in
the streets and in the malls in America
and around the world today so what does
that mean that means that every retailer
must create a primary reason for their
customers to come to their stores as
opposed to just intercepting traffic the
experience that we create has to be
multi-sensory not only selling coffee
creating fantastic customer service but
also engaging the customer in an
emotional way both in our stores in
digital and ways in which we can be as
relevant outside of our stores as we are
inside a number of years ago many people
who cover the company said Starbucks is
has becoming a tech company because we
became so good at creating this mobile
application in this mobile ecosystem and
the flywheel effect of what it meant for
the bottom line the truth is we were
never engaged in becoming a tech company
but in trying to become relevant with
Millennials and our core customers we
had to recognize early on that we had to
make significant investments in
technology and specifically in the
mobile application the same is true now
we’re not going to become a media
company but every consumer brand must
have the capability to be as good in
their ancillary aspects of customer
touch points as they are within their
core business and the last piece of this
is we all have to answer the question
what is our core purpose and reason for
being and then answer the question in
the affirmative that any of these
actions or strategic points of view like
like up standards
does it thread back to the core purpose
and reason for being and in our case
we’re constantly asking ourselves will
this initiative make our people and our
customers proud this is not going to
make Starbucks more money it’s not
however we have been a very successful
public company over many years
performance is the price of admission
and I think people recognize that all
these things ladder up to the equity of
the brand the equity the experience and
what we’re trying to do to maintain our
relevance not only in the US but in 75
countries around the world in 25
thousand stores and the question is how
do we do that and we have to kind of
reject the status quo push for
reinvention and self renewal and also I
think and this is important not
everything’s gonna work and as soon as
something does not work
the answer is fail fast and move on I
think in large part the success that we
have enjoyed is directly linked to the
fact that the lay customer today has so
much information and so much insight
into a company’s practices not only the
features and benefits of their product
or how much things cost but also the
values of the company and I think
there’s so many choices and we all have
competition the consumer today wants to
support those companies whose values are
compatible with their own this year when
we provided free college tuition for
every single Starbucks person and we
paid for it the level of pride and
adulation and relationship between our
customers and our partners those scores
went up and our business went up now
that wasn’t the intent but the
manifestation of the things we’re trying
to do as a company which are not all
based on the bottom line over many years
have proved to be successful and have
added value to the market cap and
shareholder value so I’m very proud of
what we’re doing this is not for
marketing it’s not for money it’s for
trying to do what we think is right and
used Starbucks scale for good
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