Starbucks Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4750 words

Starbucks - Case Study Example The first Starbucks store was established in the 1971 in Seattle by three friends Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. These three individuals were high school teachers of English and History. They got their inspiration to open their own coffee shop from a Dutch business man named Alfred Peet (Coffee, 2014). The Starbucks as we know today is quite different from what it was during the time of its inception. At first the store only sold raw coffee beans and coffee machines and equipments, which changed over a decade as the company also started to sell coffee drinks. A decade later the company appointed Howard Schultz as the head of retail operations. He was overwhelmed by the idea of espresso bars in Italy and asked the owners to apply the concept of coffee house in Seattle. This experiment was quite successful and it marked the beginning of the famous Starbucks coffee beverages. Howard found a company named Il Giornale, which later on acquired Starbucks (Starbucks, 2011). The acquisition of Starbuck was financially supported by a lot of local investors and the name of the company was officially changed to Starbuck Corporation. The company decided to make geographical diversification and opened up stores in Vancouver and Chicago. By 1987, the total number of Starbucks outlet was 17, which increased to 55 by 1989 and 84 in the next year. In the year 1992, the company went public and it was able to expand its business from the $27 million gathered from the stock prices (Grant, 2013).