As a successful company around the world，Starbucks have a suit of wonderful controlling system for the employees and better to leading the all of stores in the same standards. The good controlling mechanism could monitor progress towards goal achievement and taking corrective action when progress isn’t being made.
Starbucks sets up the high quality of products and services as the standard. Starbucks’ brand is famous for the best baking coffee beans in the world. They have the professional procurement system and always travel around Indonesia, East Africa and Latin America to communicate with local farmers and traders. The all kinds of coffee beans undergo a vigorous process to become the different tastes coffee, like latte, cappuccino.
Except for the high quality, Starbucks owned a suit of training plan for the all of employees. Dave Olsen said he was very busy in 2001, because he is training each person for 1 hour around the world. He wants to teach them the most professional service for coffee. For example, the milk which makes with latte should heat up to 150 Fahrenheit degree, but cannot over 170 Fahrenheit degree. He supports the employees try to heat up to 190 degree and taste by themselves to feel the customers’ thinking. It is a good way to make them know the importance of their behaviors. It is kind of normative control which is the regulation of workers’ behavior and decision s through widely shared organizational values and beliefs (McWilliams, W., 2012).
In order to ensure quality, Starbucks try to hold the four principles: Refused to franchisee; refused to sell the processed coffee beans; refused to enter the supermarket; do the most perfect baking as the goal forever.
First, Starbucks doesn’t use franchising. They want to control over the high quality and do not affected by the new business operation of franchising buyers. It is reasonable to worry, because some of franchising owners consider using the brand effect in the market and decrease the high standard to get the huge profits suddenly. In addition, Starbucks doesn’t sell the coffee beans which add the artificial flavor or color. They can’t stand to use the chemical flavoring to destroy top-grade coffee. For the same reason, they refuse to enter the supermarket though the super market is a bigger market to compare with the general store. However, they do not accept the fresh coffee to fill into the plastic container cause to change the tastes.
Because of the four principles, Starbucks lost some of chance to extend their brand. The founder of Starbucks Schultz finds the weak side in the competition. Then he changes his mind and makes the adjustment based on the four principles. For examples, Starbucks enter the supermarket in 1997 and provide the low fat milk to make the coffee drinks. Though he worry about the supermarket is a consumption environment which does not control the quality by their company, it is a best way for the retail. In fact, the decision is right because supermarket helps to reduce the costs and takes them huge volume of sales. For the customers of demand, they create a new coffee drinks which use the low fat milk to make and it is suitable for the people who want to lose weight. Nowadays, more and more Starbucks’ products are to appear in supermarket, such as juice and snack (Venessa, W., 2013).
Though Starbucks change some of principles for the market trend, they still do not give up the high level controlling in quality. For example, more and more Starbucks stores join venture with other companies to operate in China; however, Starbucks still hold the biggest share. In Singapore, Starbucks try to limit the branded shops in 10%. The all of actions showed the high controlling in the Starbucks. Sticking to the right principles and comparing with the actual effect to make change. It is Starbucks high-grade controlling ability.
Reference:
Venessa, W., 2013, ‘Starbucks’s Supermarket Invasion, Now With Juice’ , retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-28/starbucks-s-supermarket-invasion-now-with-juice
McWilliams, W. (2012) Introduction to Management, MGMT, p325-326
