Marketing Starbucks - Case Study Example

Marketing Starbucksa. What are the alternatives that Starbucks has (include add’l 20 hours per week per store as 1option).In the midst of the 21st century business competition, service delivery has become a key ingredient for business success. In the recent past, Starbucks has faced a big challenge in service delivery, which has reduced its competitive capacity in the coffee selling business. To streamline its operations, the management has considered a number of options to return to profitability in the market.

First, the organization considers the option of increasing its employees to ensure that it has the right capacity to offer desired services to the customers. Secondly, the organization is considering providing more automatic espresso machines (Youngme & Quelch, 2003). Finally, the organization has the option to increase additional 20 hours per week to ensure improve the efficiency of service. b. What are advantages and disadvantages of the top 3 choices Starbucks has (include add’l 20 hours per week per store as 1 option).

To select from the available options, it is crucial for the management to consider the advantages and weakness of each option available to the organization. To begin with, the idea of increase the labour resource is crucial as it will ensure that labour is shared and hence there is efficient service delivery. However, this is likely to increase the cost of production, which would trivialise the organization profitability. Increasing the number of automatic service machines would be crucial in reducing the cost of labour and provide a consistent service to the customers.

On the other side, this would jeopardise the customer interaction and may be expensive in the long run if the customer tastes change (Youngme & Quelch, 2003). Lastly, increasing the working hours per week would be crucial to handle the extra labour demanded by efficient service delivery, but this would require employee cooperation to be effective. a. What should Starbucks do? Should Starbucks proceed with the 20 additional hour proposal? Why or why not?From the analysis of the available options, it would be advisable for the management to proceed with the idea of additional 20 hours per week.

This method is cost effective and would ensure that the customer-employee interaction is upheld. This is crucial to understand change in customer tastes (Youngme & Quelch, 2003). The challenge with this approach is that the management would require winning the employee cooperation. To win employee loyalty, the organization should consider paying the extra hours to motivate the employees to work during the extra time. Unlike the other methods that require additional costs, this approach will be cheap and efficient for the company.

ReferencesYoungme, M., & Quelch, J., (2003). Starbucks Delivering Customer Service. Retrieved from: