Howard Schultz was a dreamer. He saw a great learning opportunity with a most prosaic product, and he ran with it—despite all the skeptics and naysayers— to lead a venture to become the largest purveyor of coffee in the world, and to lead a fantastic journey for investors. Along the way, his firm became a model of enlightened employee relations and benefits, and of corporate social responsibility.
Starbucks went public in June 1992 at $17 a share. On the first day of trading, it closed at $21.50. If you had invested $10,000 then, your investment eventually would be worth some $650,000. While many firms offer options to key executives and technicians (as we saw in the Google case), Howard Schultz made them, as well as health benefits, available to everyone working for as few as 20 hours a week, even including those standing behind the counter at local stores. And these stores could be close, even across the street or down the block from each other.
Alas, by 2008, as an economic downturn hit the country, Starbucks' fortunes worsened and its charmed growth path became rocky.
Howard Schultz rose from humble beginnings in Brooklyn. He was a quarterback at Canarsie High, a school so poor it didn't even have a football field. Northern Michigan University offered him a football scholarship, and he was out of Brooklyn at last. But he couldn't make the team, and resorted to bartending and selling his blood to make ends meet. He majored in communications and public speaking, but didn't know what to do after graduating in 1975, and wound up working at a nearby ski lodge. Eventually, he got a job with Xerox, in the sales training program.
He found selling to be his forte, and by 1981 was vice president of U.S. operations for a Swedish manufacturer of kitchen equipment. Then he noticed that a little retailer in Seattle named Starbucks was placing amazingly large orders for a certain type of coffeemaker. He went to investigate how this small store could buy more of these than Macy's, and his comfortably complacent life would change forever. He wound up selling himself to the owners as the man they needed to grow their business.
This original Starbucks store was and still is located in the Pike Place Market, a major tourist attraction near the waterfront. It and three sister stores had opened around Seattle and offered a major contrast to the 50-cent cups of black liquid that were usually served with gobs of powdered cream and sugar in self-service convenience stores. These Starbucks stores offered rich, exotic coffee blends at six to eight times the price of ordinary coffee. By the time Starbucks went public, it had 165 stores, but they almost all were clustered around Seattle and neighboring states except for one in Vancouver, Canada. As Schultz contemplated expanding nationwide, eastern skeptics ridiculed the idea of $3-$4 coffee as strictly a West Coast yuppie fad.[103]
At times, Schultz himself had to doubt that Starbucks would ever reach this threshhold of great growth. So many obstacles barred his dream. In the first place, the owners of these four Seattle stores were cool to the growth that Schultz envisioned— they preferred their comfortable status quo. A particular bone of contention was Schultz's desire to emphasize serving coffee and espresso, rather than just the beans that the firm had always sold. "Starbucks is a retailer—not a restaurant or a bar," they argued.[104]
In late 1985, with the impasse Schultz left to start his own company. He particularly wanted to replicate authentic Italian-style coffee bars, such as he had found so intriguing several years before on a trip to Italy. These were small social gathering places, sometimes two or three to a block, serving richly flavored coffee and espresso. Schultz decided to name his new venture Il Giornale, this being the name of the largest newspaper in Italy, and giornale means daily. The name expressed his hope that people would patronize daily.
Schultz estimated he would need $400,000 in seed money to make this new venture in Seattle artistically appealing. Then he would need another $1.25 million to open eight more espresso bars in and around Seattle.
He raised the seed money rather quickly and opened the first store in April, and sales exceeded expectations although it was not yet profitable. He had already signed a lease for a second store, but had trouble raising the $1.25 million. He realized with some concern that investors could not get over the notion that coffee was only a commodity. Unless he could change such a mindset, this was a major impediment, one that would scuttle his dream. To everyone who would listen he repeated his mantra:
"We would take something old and tired and common—coffee—and weave a sense of romance and community around it. We would rediscover the mystique and charm that had swirled around coffee throughout the centuries. We would enchant customers with an atmosphere of sophistication and style and knowledge."[105] Eventually he raised $1.65 million. Those initial investors ended up earning a one hundred-to-one return on their investment.[106]
Within six months, the first Il Giornale store was serving more than 1,000 customers a day. With profound relief, Schultz found that the tiny 700-square-foot store had become a gathering place, just as were those coffee bars in Italy that had so impressed him. He opened two more stores, including one in Vancouver, and by mid-1987 sales were around $500,000 for each store. Then in August 1987, a major opportunity presented itself.
The owners of Starbucks offered Schultz the chance to buy them out. They now had six stores, the roasting plant, and the name Starbucks. But he had exhausted nearly every resource in raising the previous amounts. Now he needed almost $4 million more. Still, his persuasive skills enabled him to get this, mostly from present investors who saw the future promise and had confidence in Schultz himself. He was 34 years old and felt himself at the beginning of a great adventure. The name Il Giornale was dropped, and henceforth all stores would be named Starbucks, which seemed a more catchy name and one that matched his robust coffee.
Schultz quickly learned that morale at the original Starbucks was not good, and he needed to gain employees' trust. He wrote, "I wanted people to feel proud of working at Starbucks, to believe in their hearts that management trusted them and treated them with respect. I was convinced that under my leadership, employees would come to realize that I would listen to their concerns. If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a union."[107]
Without the glaring spotlight of being a public company, Schultz was able to experiment and develop Starbucks while still a private company. He focused on national expansion, employee benefits, investing in the future, and management development.
The Chicago Test
Early on, Schultz had wanted to expand to Chicago, to test whether this center of conservative Midwest culture would be receptive to the stronger, richer, and more robust taste of Starbucks, and also whether the retail stores would morph to become daily gathering places. He feared that Chicago might be the crucial arena that would largely determine Starbucks' future, whether it could indeed be the national brand he envisioned. Better learn the verdict now, early in the game, he thought. But the experts were so negative: 2,000 miles away, they pointed out; hard to supply with a perishable product like fresh-roasted coffee; too much of a cultural shock, this, the heartland of Folger's and Maxwell House coffees.
But he pushed on, opening the first store in the Chicago Loop in October 1987; and it was a disaster. For one thing, it faced the street, and he now learned people did not go outside in the winter unless they had to—he should have had this open into a lobby. Over the next six months, Schultz opened three more stores in the area. But demand was spotty at best, while rents and labor costs were considerably higher than the West Coast. Was Starbucks really a fad? Was the concept transferable? Skepticism made raising money difficult, and while needed money was eventually raised, the price per share was far lower than he had hoped.
In Chicago the corner was turned in 1990—three years it took—with experienced managers and higher prices reflecting the higher costs. Now he saw wonderingly that a groundswell was beginning to emerge as a growing body of loyal customers had learned to love the stronger flavored coffee, and also cappuccinos and caffe lattes. Yes, and also the customer service and inviting atmosphere.
Onward to California and Beyond
Schultz decided to enter Los Angeles in 1991. Skeptics, again the skeptics, decried this Southern California decision: people don't walk there, they drive; people don't want to drink hot coffee in a warm climate; etc, etc. But the invasion turned out to be easily done, in contrast to Chicago. The Los Angeles Times named Starbucks the best coffee in America, and almost overnight it became chic. San Francisco was next, and then the whole country seemed a viable market.
One problem with widespread distribution that the critics pounced on was shipping fresh-roasted coffee beans without losing freshness. Therefore, they cautioned, you had to have your stores close to a roasting plant. But Schultz and his associates found the solution in FlavorLock bags. This vacuum packaging preserved freshness with the flavor from roasting sealed in before shipping.
Now the road was opened for almost unlimited expansion.
"From the beginning of my management of Starbucks, I wanted it to be the employer of choice, the company everybody wanted to work for. By paying more than the going wage in restaurants and retail stores, and by offering benefits that weren't available elsewhere, I hoped that Starbucks would attract people who were well-educated and eager to communicate our passion for coffee."[108] These words of Howard Schultz were more than lip service, and propelled Starbucks to become a paragon in employee relations and benefits, and so gain loyal and dedicated employees, all the way down to part-timers. See the following Information Box for the background of a kind and compassionate firm.
Adapted from Schultz, pp. 4, 7.
He recommended to the board of directors that health-care coverage include part-timers who worked as little as 20 hours a week. Starbucks began offering health benefits to such part-timers in late 1988, long before it became a public company. The company also covered employees who had terminal illnesses, paying full medical costs until they were covered by government programs.
The company achieved its first profitable year in October 1990. In August 1991, Schultz introduced a stock option plan for everyone, again including part-timers, who had been with the company for six months. Now employees were no longer "employees" but were "partners." And each October, every partner received 14 percent of his or her salary in stock options. When the firm went public a few years later, some of the stock options were rather valuable.
In 1987–1989, Schultz began developing a solid leadership base of managers and other personnel for the rapid expansion ahead. He wanted experienced people, and in most cases had no trouble getting them—they were eager to work for a rapidly growing company. Now he had to find the capital to finance the expansion he had in mind. Past performance was key to inspiring investor confidence.
Fortunately, revenues were rising at more than 80 percent a year, and number of stores were nearly doubling each year. Schultz had proven that his business model could work in different cities and geographical areas. Furthermore, there were signs that the specialty coffee business was increasing all over the country, both in supermarkets and stand-alone stores.
Just a year after Schultz had raised $3.8 million to acquire Starbucks, he had to raise another $3.9 million to finance growth plans. More money was needed by 1990, and venture capital firms supplied $13.5 million, and the next year $15 million. See the following Information Box about venture capitalists.
Schultz could no longer handle such store development from his office, and the challenge was now to find people to provide the expertise needed in the various aspects of what was becoming a very large firm, indeed, en route to a billion dollar company.
At last Schultz realized that they could no longer remain a private company and handle and finance the growth that seemed within their grasp. On June 26, 1992, Starbucks went public with its stock listed on NASDAQ. The initial target range was $14-$16 a share. Financial advisers recommended the low end of that range, but Schultz defied conventional wisdom and priced it at $17 a share. He and his senior management team watched anxiously as at the opening bell the price jumped to $21. The IPO (initial public offering) raised $29 million for the company, $5 million more than expected.
Within three months it was $33. But Schultz found that the market could be fickle. In early December 1995, stock reached an all-time high. But in early January, it fell and lost $300 million in market value. Three months later it rose to another all-time high. Schultz realized that being a public company had some downside. But now the company was poised to make a quantum leap in growth.
By 2006, Starbucks had 12,440 stores. Its net revenue was $7.8 billion, and net earnings were $564 million. It had been opening over a thousand stores a year since the millennium, and in 2006 had opened over 2,000. About 85 percent of all stores were company owned, and not franchised. How did it organize to attain such growth? Could there be any limit to its growth?
The strategy of growth was honed in 1992 and 1993. Recruiting and training had to be systematized to provide the capable personnel not only for individual stores but also for supporting and supervising groups of stores. In addition, overseeing the site selection, handling legal matters, as well as physically opening hundreds of stores in new markets every year, was no small matter. High-level executives from Burger King, 7-Eleven, and other retail chains were recruited for this vital aspect of great growth. The strategy was to target a large city to be a hub, and then place teams of professionals to open and support new stores. "We entered large markets quickly, with the goal of rapidly opening 20 or more stores in the first two years. From that core we branched out, entering nearby 'spoke' markets, including smaller cities and suburban locations with demographics similar to our typical customer mix."[109]
Eventually Starbucks would be in office buildings, with kiosks in building lobbies, airport terminals, and supermarkets. Schultz also introduced Frappuccinos and began expanding the food menu.
In 1994, Schultz had seen that his ambitious initial goals were within reach. Now he envisioned a bigger goal: the world market. In truth, the successful business plan was now being copied around the world, as was the logo. He was sure that only accelerated foreign growth would counter the imitators. In years to come, he had a long-term global target of 40,000 stores.
The following Information Box gives statistics for the years of most rapid growth.
By late 2007, the economy was on the cusp of a recession because of the collapsed housing market, the multitude of foreclosures due to unwise and even fraudulent subprime lending, and tightened credit. The stock market reflected these concerns and had dropped from record highs earlier in the year. Starbucks' stock was particularly hard hit, dropping nearly 50 percent from its highs. One analyst said, "The . . . underlying fear is that Starbucks is finally seeing the signs of saturation in the U.S."[110] Some analysts were saying that the chain had fallen behind in creating enticing new beverages and that its hot egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwiches had created little excitement.[111]
Other analysts cited a subtle change in Starbucks' customer base, that in its rapid increase in stores, it had reached Americans with lower average incomes. These people would more likely cut back luxury spending in more austere economic times—after all, high priced coffee can be an expensive luxury.[112] Or is it? It was but a short step from analysts warning of a changing customer base to critics decrying too many stores.
Not the least of the emerging threats was intensified competition. In the last few years, McDonald's had upgraded its coffee and spent $60 million advertising this in 2006. For 2008, it planned to add lattes and cappuccinos to thousands of stores. In test markets, McDonald's priced such drinks near $3, considerably less than Starbucks. But some analysts did question whether McDonald's could sell a $3 cappuccino.[113]
Up until 2007, Starbucks had used no network television, and only spent $37.9 million on advertising, largely on magazine and newspaper ads. (This compared with Dunkin' Donuts who spent $116.2 million on ads in the United States.) It had always relied mostly on word-of-mouth, and such local marketing efforts as sponsoring a free day at the zoo. The collapsing stock prices now induced the company to shift advertising to national ads. Faced with a declining number of transactions in older U.S. stores for the first time, the company cut its earnings and sales growth projections for 2008.[114]
Starbucks today is one of the world's best known brands. It owes it all to a visionary, Howard Schultz. Although not Starbucks' founder, he built the company into a coffee empire. He believed in maximum growth in number of outlets, regardless of their proximity to each other. While many analysts criticized placing stores near each other because of their likelihood of cannibalizing (i.e., taking sales away from one another), Schultz maintained that this was desirable to lessen long lines at the bar.
Through the years, Starbucks had been the darling and also the whipping boy of both investors and skeptics, and the stock commanded a high price/earnings ratio. Until the meltdown in stock prices that started in late 2007, Schultz had always proven the skeptics wrong. Still, growth seemed vulnerable if the market was indeed saturated and overstored. Is coffee any different than hamburgers, than running shoes, than bottled water, even than PCs? For decades, McDonald's was confronted with the same skeptics who trumpeted, "How many hamburgers can one person eat?" Sometimes a judicious diversification can start the firm on a growth curve again. More often, however, such diversifications and acquisitions do not live up to expectations.
Is increased competition from powerful firms such as McDonald's going to delimit Starbucks' growth? Perhaps, unless we can envision the total market expanding for richer coffee and the social experience of a coffeehouse. While Starbucks was introducing some food items, management had to worry about being seen as just another fast-food restaurant. It needed to safeguard its image as a coffeehouse.
In the decline of Starbucks' stock value in the recent market retrenchment, much was made over same-store sales not showing the 5–10 percent growth they had in the past. See Table 8.4 for older store sales increases from preceding years, 2001–2006.
Investors quickly perceived from lessening same-store sales in 2007/2008 that Starbucks was no longer a growth company, and thus the stock's high multiple was not justified. Was this perception of Starbucks warranted? Perhaps not. Static same-store sales should not rule out overall growth as long as new stores are being opened, and cannibalization may be less a concern than critics maintain.
Table 8.4. Older Store Sales Growth, 2001–2006
Percentage Sales Growth from Previous Year | |
|---|---|
Source: Starbucks 2006 Annual Report. | |
Commentary: These six years show a very healthy growth pattern. We know that Starbucks had been rapidly opening new stores, but the older stores show sales gains too. Unfortunately, we know that same store sales began declining in 2007 and 2008, aggravated by a worsening economy, but also raising investor fears of cannibalization and market saturation. Investors were losing confidence in the growth prospects of Starbucks, hence a falling stock price. | |
2001 | 5 |
2002 | 6 |
2003 | 8 |
2004 | 10 |
2005 | 8 |
2006 | 7 |
A Wall Street Journal article suggested that additional Starbucks, far from cannibalizing, may instead expand the total market for coffee to the entire community so that all benefit. See the preceding Information Box for more on this.
Schultz introduced perhaps the best example of enlightened social responsibility of any firm today, by providing complete health care for all employees and their families, even part-timers, as well as a pension plan with stock options for every person, again including part-timers employed at least six months in any capacity. A moving book has even been written about How Starbucks Saved My Life, by Michael Gates Gill.
The author describes his unusual journey after losing a senior advertising job along with his marriage. Lonely and unemployed at 63 years old—with no health insurance after being diagnosed with a brain tumor—he landed a job at a Starbucks in Manhattan. His fellow workers and boss were decades younger, mostly African-Americans, with formal educations light years away from his Ivy League degree from Yale. But rather than feeling depressed taking orders for lattes and lugging garbage to the curb, he had found a health provider as well as a refuge, where he felt valued with friends among both colleagues and regular customers.
Gill's account of his year behind the counter at Starbucks—this is slated to become a movie starring Tom Hanks—can tantalize a reader that being in a community at work can be more rewarding than a big office or title.[116]
The company also participated in various environmental projects, such as improving children's health in coffee-and- tea-producing regions, addressing the educational needs of indigenous Mayan peoples dependent on coffee production, and promoting coffee quality, environmental sustainability, and natural resources conservation in east Africa. For example, Starbucks paid Ethiopian coffee farmers a 75 percent premium over market prices, believing this was better than passing out the equivalent in welfare.[117]
One wonders, however, as sales and profits confront recessionary times, whether it can maintain its social responsibility against pressure from investors and creditors.
In early January 2008, Schultz, the company's chairman, again took over the chief executive post as the company reported the worst quarterly same-store sales in its history. Some questioned whether Starbucks could re-energize itself, amid an environment of stiffer competition and rising prices for commodities such as milk and coffee beans, at a time when many consumers were feeling pinched between recession and inflation. The company began experimenting in the Seattle area with a $1 "short" brew and free refills for traditional-brewed coffee.
Schultz planned to stop selling hot breakfast sandwiches, concerned that they created an unpleasant smell—"the scent of the warmed sandwiches interferes with the coffee aroma in our stores"—and made the company too much like a fast-food chain.
But could he disregard the $35,000 a year in sales they added to each store? The growth in new stores would be slowed, although he still planned to add more than 2,000 in 2008, but would close some poor performers. International expansion was deemed crucial in the company's recovery, and China was one of its biggest markets with already more than 420 stores—"the sheer numbers of people make it an enormous opportunity." Despite the cheaper premium coffees that McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts were adding, Schultz as well as some analysts did not see these as that big a threat because Starbucks had always faced lower-priced competition. "When you succeed at this level for so long . . . you get a little soft," Schultz said. "We have to get back to what made this company great."[118]
See the previous Profile of the person who became Schultz's right hand in a creative struggle to resurrect Starbucks' growth.
On Tuesday, February 26, 2008, Starbucks closed almost all of its 7,100 domestic stores between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. for an unprecedented education and training session for its employees, to "signal the company's focus on transforming the Starbucks experience: for its customer and workers. During the training session, baristas learned updated quality standards for "pulling the perfect espresso shot, skillfully... ensuring that every beverage and every experience is right for every customer, every time." (In a move to take advantage of Starbucks' 3-hour absence from the market, Dunkin' Donuts promoted 99-cent small lattes, cappuccinos, and espresso drinks during that time.)
At the annual shareholder meeting held on March 19, 2008, Schultz announced that the company was buying the maker of a high-end coffee brewing machine and adding new expresso machines that would allow baristas to interact more easily with customers. The company issued a new loyalty card that gives cardholders added benefits. It also launched a Web site for customers to offer suggestions and also a social network where users can comment on each others' ideas. Starbucks also planned to sell energy drinks and create more health-oriented items. The $1 drip coffee that was being tested in a few stores was dropped because of poor sales. Planned store additions for 2008 were cut to 1,175 from the original plan of 2,000, and 100 under-performers would be closed.[119]
In the quest for greater efficiency, Schultz had his organization focus on "lean" Japanese techniques for food and drink handling. He installed a vice president of lean thinking headed by a student of the Toyota production system, where lean manufacturing got its start. A 10-person "lean team" spread out with stopwatches aimed at reducing waste of time in "walking, reaching, bending" to make a drink. Costs were also cut by renegotiating rents, and reducing the number of bakery suppliers. Starbucks had the most popular brand page on Facebook with more than 3.5 million fans. These efforts resulted in costs being reduced $175 million in the quarter, and net earnings of $151 million compared with a net loss of $6.7 million a year earlier.[120]
Starbucks has faced increased competition from rivals such as McDonald's and 7-Eleven. McDonald's in particular was at first a source of concern because of the much larger advertising budget for McCafe specialty coffee. But Schultz maintained that this added attention has "created unprecedented awareness for the coffee category overall, and has actually had a positive result on Starbucks business." Supporting this conjecture, some McDonalds franchises questioned how much the expresso-based mochas and lattes were contributing to sales. Some voiced concern over how well equipped the stores were to handle complicated coffee orders. Because McDonalds combines sales statistics for the expressos, with iced coffee, hot chocolate, and the like, no information is provided how much higher-priced drinks are contributing.[121]
Invitation to Make Your Own Analysis and Conclusions
Your prognosis, please, for Schultz's proposals for turning Starbucks around.
Can Schultz's business model be challenged?
How would you prove that happy employees lead to greater sales?
Do you frequent Starbucks? If so, what is your opinion of it?
If you do not frequent Starbucks, what might induce you to try it?
Do you see any limits to Starbucks' growth?
Would drive-through windows make Starbucks more attractive or less attractive? Why?
Several recent surveys have found that Starbucks coffee in blind taste tests is not rated any higher by consumers than McDonalds, Dunkin' Donuts, and some local coffee houses. Yet, Starbucks continues to command a price premium. Discuss.
"Starbucks' unspoken strategy for repeat business is coffee so strong in caffeine that customers become addicted to it like tobacco. Is this a good citizen?" Comment.
"[With Frappucinos] That's when we discovered we were bringing people into the stores that hadn't had coffee before." These words of Michelle Gass have interesting implications. Evaluate them on several dimensions.
As a Starbucks senior executive, describe how you would defend against McDonald's.
You have been given the assignment by Howard Schultz to reevaluate the growth policy. Present your recommendations and rationale as persuasively as possible.
Be a devil's advocate. The decision is being considered of going to TV advertising, as well as drive-through windows, thus becoming more like the successful fast-food restaurants. What arguments would you array for not doing this? Be as persuasive as you can.
Debate this issue: Starbucks is reaching the limits of its growth without drastic change. (Note: The side that espouses drastic change should give some attention to the most likely directions for such change, and be prepared to defend these expansion possibilities.)
Debate the issue of employee benefits during a time of falling profits and stock prices. One group should offer its arguments for dropping some or most of the employee health and profit-sharing benefits, while the other group vigorously defends keeping them.
What is the situation with Starbucks now? Has it abandoned or toned down its vigorous expansion policy? Has the more aggressive competition of firms such as McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts had an impact on Starbucks? Have any other serious competitors emerged for gourmet coffee and for the coffeehouse atmosphere? Is the company still offering the same employee benefits? How about its environmental stance?
[103] Cora Daniels, "Mr. Coffee: the Man behind the $4.75 Frappuccino Makes the 500," Fortune, April 14, 2003.
[104] Howard Schultz, Pour Your Heart Into It, Hyperion: New York, 1977, p. 55.
[105] Ibid., p. 77.
[106] Ibid., p. 79.
[107] Ibid., p. 108.
[108] Ibid., p. 125.
[109] Schultz, pp. 194–195.
[110] Janet Adamy, "At Starbucks, Too Many, Too Quick?" Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2007, pp. B1 and B2.
[111] Janet Adamy, "Starbucks Chairman Says Trouble May Be Brewing," Wall Street Journal, February 24–25, 2007, p. A4.
[112] Ibid.
[113] Janet Adamy, "Will Investors Buy into Iced McMochas?" Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2007, p. C1.
[114] Stephanie Kang, Janet Adamy, and Suzanne Vranica, "TV Campaign Is Culture Shift for Starbucks," WallStreet Journal, November 17–18, 2007, pp. A1 and A7.
[115] Adapted from "Starbucks Reverse Jinx" Aids Some Rivals, Wall Street Journal, December 29–30, 2007, p. A7.
[116] Adapted from Carol Hymowitz, "Some Holiday Books about Inspiration and Delusion at Work," WallStreet Journal, December 24, 2007, p. B1.
[117] M. Todd Henderson and Anup Malani, "Capitalism 2.0," Forbes, March 10, 2008, p. 30.
[118] Compiled from Janet Adamy, "With Starbucks, Investors Need Patience," Wall Street Journal, February 2–3, 2008, pp. B1 and B5; and Steve Forbes, "This Move Deserves a Rotten Egg," Forbes, March 10, 2008, pp. 19 and 20.
[119] Janet Adamy, "Starbucks Moves Aim to Revive Brand, Shares," Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2008, p. B5; and Jack Hough, "SmartMoney Stock Screen," March 20, 2008, p. D2.
[120] Julie Jargon, "Latest Starbucks Buzzword: 'Lean' Japanese Techniques," Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2009, pp. A1, A10.
[121] Julie Jargon and Paul Ziobro, "McDonald's Profit Declines," Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2009, p. B5; Julie Jargon, "Starbucks Swings to Profit, Aided by Cost Cuts," Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2009, p. B5.
[122] Adamy, "Starbucks Chairman Says..."