NEW COLLEGE DURHAM

Digital Technologies
Starbucks
[Type the author name]
Table of Contents:

1.0 Background of Starbucks:....................................................................................................3

2.0 Analysis of Qualitative and Quantitative Data:...................................................................3

2.1 Analysis of Qualitative Data:...........................................................................................3

2.2 Analysis of Quantitative Data:.........................................................................................4

3.0 Tools and Techniques to Analyse the Data:.........................................................................6

4.0 Current Service Provision of Starbucks:..............................................................................6

4.1 Pros of Current Service Provision of Starbucks:..............................................................7

4.2 Cons of Current Service Provision of Starbucks:.............................................................7

5.0 Recommendations:...............................................................................................................8

6.0 References:...........................................................................................................................8

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1.0 Background of Starbucks:
Starbucks is an American Multinational retailer company of coffee headquartered in
Washington. Starbucks is considered the world’s largest coffee house chain. It is a public
limited company. In September 2020, Starbucks had 32,660 stores in 83 countries. The
company was founded in 1971 and the founders were Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and
Zev Siegl. The products of Starbucks include coffee beverages, tea, sandwiches, smoothies,
and baked goods. In 2019, the revenues of the company were 26.50 billion dollars and the net
income was 3.59 billion dollars. In 2020, 349,000 employees were working in the company
(Abdel-Basset, Mohamed and Smarandache, 2020).

Figure 1: Revenues of Starbucks. (Source: Starbucks.com).

In this report, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the services of Starbucks is made and
improvements for organizational improvement through innovation and growth are
recommended.

2.0 Analysis of Qualitative and Quantitative Data:

2.1 Analysis of Qualitative Data:
Qualitative data is gathered from the interviews, survey questions, recorded observations and
journals. Qualitative analysis of data includes subjective characteristics opinions. All those
things that can't be expressed as a number are qualitative data. This analysis is based on the
attributes and properties. This analysis is qualitative. Starbucks engages its customers through
different social media channels. Through different social media profiles, the company caters
to the audience from different geographical locations (Sholihah et al., 2016).

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 Figure 2: Promotion of Starbucks. (Source: Starbucks.com).

The Instagram account of Starbucks shows an unparallel level of engagement on social

media. Starbucks is killing its competitors through social media platforms. The company has
a great number of followers and subscribers. These numbers of followers show the successful
struggle of Starbucks on online platforms. Starbucks has managed to create a cult following
for different offerings. Starbucks has successfully gained the highest customer engagement of
any other brand (Paryani, 2020).

2.2 Analysis of Quantitative Data:

Quantitative analysis includes the analysis of hard data and the actual numbers. This analysis
is based on computable values. This analysis is quantitative. There are different sources of
quantitative data which include surveys, observations, and secondary data. The data of
Starbucks is collected from secondary data. According to the social media analysis of
Starbucks, there are 87 social media profiles of the company (Chua and Banerjee, 2019).

Figure 3: Social Media presence. (Source: Chua and Banerjee, 2019).

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There are 39 Facebook pages, 27 Twitter handles, 15 Instagram Accounts, 5 YouTube
channels, and 1 LinkedIn account. The company has 37.2 million Facebook likes, 11.9
million Twitter followers, 16 million Instagram fans, and 153 thousand YouTube subscribers.
Starbucks has added 710,000 new followers on Facebook as compared to 53,000 average fans
of the competitors. During the whole period, Starbucks has just posted 160 times. 80% of the
total posts of Starbucks have accounted for 6.1 million likes and 830k shares (Sureerattanan,
2019).

Figure 4: Facebook Presence. (Source: Starbucks.com).

Figure 5: Starbucks on Twitter and Instagram. (Source: Starbucks. com).

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3.0 Tools and Techniques to Analyse the Data:
FlexPro software is used for the analysis of qualitative data. It is a software application that is
used for analyzing and presenting data. Dynamic procedures are analysed through it. FlexPro
helps to go through a large amount of data fast. It imports measured data in all the proper
formats with a precise analysis of the measured data. Millions of measurements can be
processed in seconds through it. It helps to see immediately what has been measured and
extract the information without calculations (Geereddy, 2015). For quantitative analysis tools,
SPSS is used which includes DS lab and VCL. There are 39 Facebook pages, 27 Twitter
handles, 15 Instagram Accounts, 5 YouTube channels, and 1 LinkedIn account.

Figure 6: Response on Social Media. (Source: www.slidesshare.net).

Starbucks has successfully gained the highest customer engagement of any other brand.
Through the photos, Starbucks provides updates about their latest products. The brand
provides limited-time sales to attract its customers towards the products (Mogi and States,
2019).

Figure 7: Comparison of Social Sites. (Source: Starbucks.com).

4.0 Current Service Provision of Starbucks:

Starbucks sells hot and cold drinks, salads, pastries, drip-brewed coffee, coffee beans,
sandwiches and Panini, snacks, espresso-based hot drinks, and different items like tumblers.
Starbucks also has an entertainment division and Hear Music brand. The services of
Starbucks include strong loyalty programs, excellent employee treatment, and gender-neutral

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restrooms. The company does the marketing of books, film, and music (Rivero, 2015).
Starbucks has different digital technologies through which it provides different services for
its customers. In this regard, the company does digital media buying and planning, PR
planning, product photography, and video production. The company uses social media for the
marketing of its products (Basset et al., 2018).

Figure 8: Marketing on Social Sites. (Source: Starbucks.com).

4.1 Pros of Current Service Provision of Starbucks:

The current services of Starbucks have some pros that lead the company towards a strong
brand image. Because of all these services, the company has managed to maintain a strong
brand image among the customers. These services have provided a strong financial
performance. The company earned 26.5 billion dollars of annual revenues in 2019. All the
products of Starbucks have excellent quality, taste and standardization. The company engages
its customers through social media which provides excellent employee treatment (Argenti,
2019).

Figure 9: Offers of Starbucks. (Source: www.slidesshare.net).

4.2 Cons of Current Service Provision of Starbucks:

The weaknesses of the products and services of Starbucks are the lack of innovation and
creativity. The company has failed in innovation over time. The products and services of

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Starbucks are lacking to look for a business portfolio. The pacific coffee of Starbucks is a risk
to the business. The services of Starbucks are provided at high prices and there is the
instability of products in the company (Corey and Su, 2017).

5.0 Recommendations:
The company faces different issues like competition, social trends, lack of innovation, and
imitation. It is recommended to protect the business of Starbucks against imitative is to
innovate aggressively in the area of product development. There must be more effective
pricing strategies to attract customers and to navigate the weakness of high-cost products. In
this regard, bundle pricing can help the company that involves low-cost sellers.

The company should also implement creative marketing and branding strategies that could
help the company in development. Starbucks should get ideas from the customers to improve
the experience and to enhance customer engagement. The company should adopt survival and
offensive mode to the rapid development of entrants of the same market. The company
should expand in developing markets and should do partnerships with other firms. All these
recommendations will help the company to innovate and to support organizational growth.

6.0 References:
 Abdel-Basset, M., Mohamed, M. and Smarandache, F. (2018) ‘An extension of
neutrosophic AHP-SWOT analysis for strategic planning and decision-making’,
Symmetry, 10(4).
 Argenti, P. A. (2014) 'Collaborating with activists: How Starbucks works with NGOs',
California Management Review, 47(1).
 Basset, M. A. et al. (2018) ‘An integrated neutrosophic AHP and SWOT method for
strategic planning methodology selection’, Benchmarking, 25(7), pp. 2546–2564.
 Chua, A. Y. K. and Banerjee, S. (2013) ‘Customer knowledge management via social
media: The case of Starbucks’, Journal of Knowledge Management, 17(2), pp. 237–
249.
 Corey, E. J. and Su, W. (2017) ‘The Starbucks Experience’, Tetrahedron Letters,
28(44), pp. 5241–5244.
 Geereddy, N. (2015) ‘Strategic Analysis Of Starbucks Corporation’, Harvard
University, 3(3), pp. 4–6. Available at:
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nithingeereddy/files/starbucks_case_analysis.pdf.
 Mogi, Y. and States, U. (2014) ‘Do No tC op y’, (May 2003).
 Paryani, K. (1970) ‘Product quality, service reliability and management of operations
at Starbucks’, International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, 3(7),
pp. 1–14.
 Rivero, O. (2015) 'Starbucks Corporation: Leading Innovation in the 21st Century,
Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 7, pp. 23–38. Available at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2638468Electroniccopyavailableat:http://ssrn.com/abstract=2
638468.
 Sholihah, P. I. et al. (2016) 'The Strategy of Starbucks and its Effectiveness on its
Operations in China, a SWOT Analysis', Asian Journal of Business and Management,
04(05), pp. 2321–2802. Available at: www.ajouronline.com.

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 Sureerattanan, N. (2013) ‘Applying SWOT Analysis to Solve a Learning Problem: An
Experiential Case at Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology’, (Erse), pp. 176–178.