SWOT and Recommendations

SWOT Analysis for Starbucks  

• Strong brand name and image, the reputation of brand name and image of Starbucks allow brand recognition and consumer retention. Therefore, the expanding of stores to other countries is more proficient and easier. 
• Healthy financial performance, the financial performance of company has positive aspects. The revenues of Starbucks in 2007 were $9.411 billion, growing at about 30 percent. The exponential growth in revenue and profit creates the strong financial statement and reliability to shareholders. 
• High-skilled management team, Starbucks has highly skilled and professional Chief executive officers (CEOs), for example, Howard Schultz, Orin Smith and Howard Behar. These lead to the rapid and stable growth of Starbucks. 

• High technology, Starbucks brings the technology to use in the stores in order to attract more customers. For instance, there are high-speed internet, website and prepaid Starbucks card. It might be increase traffic in the stores particularly in new generation group. 
• High quality and innovation of products of Starbucks uses high quality of coffee beans and dairy goods. Furthermore, new products are usually introduced by Starbucks including coffee and beverage line. Both of them enable Starbucks to be able to maintain level of sales and keep competitors out. 

Weakness: 

• High price which would increase the price due to rising cost of production, including cost of dairy goods and cost of rent. The increase of price might have an effect on the falling of sales and customer retention directly 
• Clusters of stores, because Starbucks has a lot of stores and also these are located in closed areas, it leads to the scramble of customers in each store. Clusters ofstores might cause inefficient performance of the company. 

Opportunities: 

• Large consumer group which China has the biggest world’s population. Coffee drinking is more popular among young generation, especially those who have overseas education, which influences the coffee consumption. Many of these teenagers have lived in western countries for a long time and they have familiar withthe coffee culture. When returning to China they have carried on living in this fashion. Chinese teenagers also like to choose western style coffee shops as their favorite place. 
• Modern lifestyle of Chinese teenagers and adults supports the proliferation of western coffee shops. Meeting and discussing business in a warm and nicely designed coffee shop have become more popular in China. Consequently, the teahouse’s domination has been challenged by the foreign coffee house. 

Threats: 

The global coffee market is a very competitive sector. Starbucks is facing the increase of competitions from other foreign players. The latest Starbucks’ competitor is Canadian chain Blenz Coffee, which plans to open a string of café in China where consumers can smoke, while Starbucks is non-smoke stores. 

Essays, UK. (November 2013). Marketing Essays – Starbucks Coffee. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/starbucks-coffee.php?vref=