Event Report: Shannon Jones, “Innovation@Starbucks”

The following is a report on the occasion of the third main event of 2010 held by EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam at the Amsterdam Renaissance Hotel on 15 March 2010. We thank Margareta Jonker-Dorila for submitting this report.

Innovation also means “do your core business right”

One of the most striking statements of Shannon Jones, Director Marketing and Category for Starbucks Coffee Company EMEA, was that most of the time innovation means to “do your core business right”.
Listening to the captivating presentation of our guest speaker who brought 70 members and guests of EPWN Amsterdam together on Monday evening this statement seems to have been one of the conclusions of the re-examination of the company’s strategy in the beginning of 2008.

Starbucks has been one of the greatest success stories in the US. The company started in 1971 with one coffee shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Today, Starbucks serves millions of customers every day, in close to 17.000 locations in over 50 countries. The EMEA headquarter is located, together with the roasting plant, in Amsterdam where around 130 Starbucks partners – this is how employees are called – of the regional support center are working closely with the countries in several areas.

In 2008, Starbucks reported slower profit growth mainly due to the business in the US. The start of a new era was set when Howard Schultz, founder of the company in 1971, decided to return as CEO in order to lead the company again – which at that time seemed to have become quite bureaucratic – to focus on its core business: to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. So, innovation in the beginning of 2008 was to return to the core business.

Shannon shared with us how innovation at Starbucks is about large and also small things. Every aspect of the daily business at Starbucks is being reconsidered, like how to steam the milk properly for the perfect latte. When – during the recession – Starbucks was facing the reflection of a “luxury brand” rather than the “third place” that the company aimed to be, they also reviewed store design and developed new concepts like “heritage”, “artisan” or “regional modern” which are currently being piloted around the world, including flag ship stores in Europe to better respond to the local flavor of different places.

How to leverage with cultural differences was a big part of the Q&A session: Each country has its own habits and traditions when it comes to drinking coffee. The challenge is to implement the Starbucks concept in different parts of the world while staying true to the brand and taking local characteristic into account.

So what is the path to the future for Starbucks? New product lines are currently being introduced like VIA (portable instant coffee sachets), Starbucks Shared Planet comprises various areas of their long established corporate social responsibility program, and Starbucks extends its presence in social media like twitter and facebook to keep a very close contact to their consumers and partners.

All participants fully agreed that it was a sheer pleasure to follow the attention-grabbing presentation of a true passionate Starbucks partner Shannon Jones. Shannon truly lives the Starbucks spirit and was not intimidated by the large amount of questions she received. We all loved the straight forward answers and cannot wait to finally choose our “third place”, our very own Starbucks in The Netherlands… hopefully coming soon.

(Edited for publication)