Starbucks SWOT Analysis

Business
Updated on January 17, 2024

Starbucks is a well-known American coffee company and coffeehouse chain all around the world. It continues to enlarge through the other countries as well and even now just operates in approximately 31.000 stores. In this article we’ll discover the Starbucks SWOT Analysis for you!

BASIC INFO ABOUT STARBUCKS

Company Name: Starbucks Corporation
Industry: Retail – Coffeehouse Chain
CEO: Kevin R. Johnson
Foundation Year: 1971
Founders: Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker
Number of Employees: Approximately 420,000
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington, United States
Website: https://www.starbucks.com/

Is there anyone who never drinks one of Starbucks coffee before? This would be impossible. At least you have seen the logo of the company somewhere, right?

STARBUCKS SWOT ANALYSIS

Being a well-known company is the main reason of being preferred to explain all the key points and details of SWOT Analysis.

This blog post will help you to understand all the weaknesses and strengths that Starbucks has. On the other hand, also explain the opportunities and threats Starbucks may encounter.

STARBUCKS SWOT – STRENGHTS:

Let’s start with the Strengths of Starbucks.

Strong Brand Name
Extensive Global Supply Chain
Quality Coffee Beans and Tastes
Same Experience in Every Branch

As it is mentioned before, Starbucks is known by everyone, can you see the success that Starbucks already have? This shows that Starbucks is already one point ahead. All of us can accept it as the greatest strength. Starbucks already has a potential customer with their name, so assume that this is a big customer acquisition even in starting.

Starbucks - Strengths

On the other hand, before the customer goes any of the Starbucks branches, they can imagine what to expect them. Starbucks customers have already known what the seating looks like, the smell and even the taste of the coffee. It is an advantage that comes from the standardization of the job you did.

Their customer always feels like they have been there before, all the branches are familiar, and they know that will get the same taste wherever they go.

It is like being in a safe zone each time.

In the Starbucks SWOT Analysis there is one thing that we need to underline, the same coffee taste and stable quality in each branch. This is the key point that they must manage if they want to hold success in their hand. They need to procure the coffee taste by using the same coffee beads to protect their standardized profile. Starbucks does it well actually and this is another strength that they have.

Starbucks supplies coffee beans from Latin America, Africa, and the Asia Pacific, which are considered leaders of qualified coffee beans around the world. When they put too much effort to preserve their suppliers and the quality standards of coffee beans, the success rate of serving coffee taste stay in line.

Besides that, another point we should not ignore is the free Wi-fi opportunity that Starbucks offers to its customers. That’s why the number of people who prefer Starbucks is undeniable.

From a customer point of view, a comfortable place with a favorite coffee taste and even free internet, it sounds like home!

STARBUCKS SWOT – WEAKNESSES:

Apart from so many strengths, there should also exist some weak sides.

High Prices
Imitability of Products
Local Competitors
Qualified Employee Selection (Barista)

Otherwise, the whole world would only drink coffee from Starbucks and local businesses cannot stay alive because of this monopolistic power of the company. For a company of this size, it may not be easy to focus on everything equally.

Especially, if they have created a business model for standardizing their products and services, they may not be able to capture local tastes or habits. Therefore, if they could not meet the demands of the local people, they could not achieve the same success in local areas.

We all know that there is a coffee culture known to everybody. But, when we look at the most popular products of Starbucks such as White chocolate mocha, we can see that it might not be liked in other countries that prefer more spicy tastes like pumpkin spice latte or chai tea latte.

Overall, it is difficult to be able to appeal to every culture, especially standardize it as a ready-to-go coffee model. Besides that, there is one more thing that can vary among countries are the affordability of the product. We all know that the prices of Starbucks are not cheap to be purchased by everyone. This is also another reason that Starbucks cannot expand its branches to some of the countries that cannot pay this much amount for one coffee.

There is something else that is noteworthy in Starbucks SWOT Analysis, maybe most of us have not thought about it before but there is something more compelling for Starbucks called “barista”. In Starbucks, employees called barista; a person who serves in a coffee bar. Have you ever thought about how difficult is to keep quality constant while your employees are constantly changing? And even the taste of coffee depends entirely on a barista?

Customer’s decisions can easily change negatively due to just one coffee, not general thoughts, but it is already enough to waste your effort for this branch.

It sounds scary, right?

Of course, everything that you offer for your customer can differ in all branches of Starbucks, even in the same city. Let’s also consider how much this can change on a country basis. It can cause big issues to Starbucks, so they need to care too much about their employees’ experiences and knowledge about coffee making.

Additionally, we have to mention that the imitability of the coffee tastes as a last weakness of Starbucks. Nowadays, the third wave of local coffeehouses become more common. Starbucks can save itself from the popularity of local coffee shops by preserving the quality of the coffee seeds and tastes.

STARBUCKS SWOT – OPPORTUNITIES:

Let’s also talk about the opportunities of Starbucks.

Standardized Business Model
Co-Branding Opportunities
Unique Tastes

You can think about what else they can do more to be better. But there is always more to do best. As I mentioned before, their business model is built on standardizing their products and services. This is the biggest opportunity that they have.

Opening a new branch requires quite easy steps for them, the hardest part is finding the right place to open. After they had a decision, they will just go and set it. They do not even need to advertise when they open a new branch.

If Starbucks wants to make any advertisements, they always find a collaboration partner on an international scale. Most of the companies want to collaborate with the biggest and famous ones. We have to add co-branding is also a big advantage that they have, one logo is enough for too many people to know who you are.

Besides that, as in the SWOT Analysis, there is one more thing Starbucks can do it perfectly. Worth of mouth marketing! Have you heard the name of Pumpkin Spice Latte before? It is impossible not to hear this when the winter comes. Most of the people know that if Pumpkin Spice Latte is started to be sold, it means winter has come. Furthermore, Berry Hibiscus or Cool lime recalls summer. We all know that these drinks of Starbucks cannot be imitable. It is also an opportunity that Starbucks has.

STARBUCKS SWOT – THREATS:

Lastly, we need to analyze the threats Starbucks may encounter.

Competition with Low-Cost Coffee Sellers
Increasing the Variety of Healthy Products
Imitation

Starbucks has too many competitors in different areas. The variety always means threat. If Starbucks does not keep the quality steady and at affordable prices, customers can start to give up preferring. Fortunately, Starbucks is fighting with this topic with the unique types of drinks (Cool Lime, Berry hibiscus, etc.) as we mentioned before. With their inimitable products, they created a great obstacle to their rivals.

Additionally, in the SWOT Analysis perspective Starbucks is offering some healthy choices to their customers.

In that way, they are appealing to people with greener and healthy lifestyles. At this point, we have to indicate one different perspective. Nowadays, people became more conscious of healthy living. On the other hand, we all know that coffee contains caffeine that is harmful to human health when consumed in excess. If coffee consumption decreases in the future, Starbucks will continue to be an indispensable place for people with healthy product options.

Starbucks already knows the threats they may encounter, and they have already begun to take action to prevent it.

FINAL WORDS

After the reading of the SWOT Analysis of Starbucks, you can also create one for your company. You may already have started to create a list on your mind. As a first step, you should start thinking through the wide window for each group of the SWOT Analysis. By specifying the main points, it will be easier to go through and concentrate on all the aspects of it.

As a Someka, we already have created a SWOT analysis template and we gave samples to you to use it for preparing Starbucks SWOT Analysis.