Crisis Management within Starbucks Organization
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- identify a crisis the organization of Starbucks Organization for( SSP) has faced in the past,
- a crisis that it is currently facing, or
- a crisis that a competitor in that industry has faced that Starbucks organization may face in the future
- Explanation of the crisis that you selected and a crisis management response recommendation.
5.Develop a strategy for improving organizational sustainability
5.Include an analysis of the ethical implications of that recommendation.
6.Be sure to integrate one or two new related and engaging questions that will extend the discussion
about your post in constructive ways. Try to think of a question(s
Reference 3-4 reference APA strictly Adhered and.at least one scholarly peer-reviewed resource in your
recommendation.
The organization Starbucks Organization is currently the leading house of coffee in the
world. It is a company situated in the Washington DC, the USA that started in 1971. It has a lot
of branches worldwide and hence operates a chain of organizations. It is an organization that
works towards providing high-quality coffee beans and coffee equipment. It started as a small
coffee dealing organization and kept on improving its activities to opening many branches
around the world. Through its success, the Starbucks Organization is always viewed as a major
icon in the business field. It is through its organizational structure and the principles of
management employed by the management that makes its organization a major icon in the
business.
Starbucks Organization operates a chain of agents around Europe and the American
region. Managing of such a large organization requires proper management skills and a firm
management to carry out its operations successfully. It is an important example that a current
business that needs to identify its goals must employ. Since the organization keeps growing,
Starbucks Organization needed to employ the current organization structure for it to be able to
carry out process optimally and hence keep on providing quality goods and their services.
However through their significant success, Starbucks Organization has faced many issues
that have led to the major setbacks in the organization. It is a reality that to get to success; there
must be ups and downs. The strength of the organization comes from the major challenges that
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they faced in the recent past. For example, the company faced a major challenge in 2007. That
was due to the rapid expanding of the Organization. It reached a point that the management of
the organization decided to shift its focus from the local customers for the greener pastures away
from their vicinity. The management decided to expand its territories to the UK, Japan, China,
and Canada. This decision leads to the decline in the sales in the same year significantly.
This shifting of focus led to loosing of customer experience, as they had to spend much
on advertising in those areas of their new ventures. The strategy to expand globally meant that
the organization of the Starbucks Organization had to be put into consideration, and be altered
where possible. In 2008, however, the CEO of the Starbucks Organization was changed, in an
attempt to bring back the organization to its right path. When Howard Schultz resumed the
position of a CEO, he worked towards bringing back Starbucks Organization to its proper
functionality. He focused on changing the structure of organization of the company. One of the
significant change that he made was to create regional divisions. This aimed to bringing back
customer experience into focus. This, however, had long-term benefits that is realized later. He
also improved the Starbucks teams working and their staff by exposing them to training. It
worked out well, and thus the firm’s financial experience and the customer experience were
improved.
Starbucks Organization, have employed proper crisis management policies through its
operations. Crisis management is the process and the steps taken by a company or an
organization to deal with the threats that are bound to weaken or destroy the company’s
performance. Due to its operations over a large region, Starbucks had to develop a proper crisis
management module to be ready to tackle any crisis that may have affected them in the past.
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Crisis management at Starbucks included the methods that were to respond to the perception of
crisis or the current crisis and the ways of communication that they would address them.
There are many types of crisis, ranging from natural to the developed human crisis
(HAVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL, 2014). As for Starbucks, they have been faced with
confrontation crisis in the past. It is where individuals, a group of individuals, or competing
business rivals tries to fight a company’s development. These confronting groups always try to
satisfy their needs and demands by fighting their enemy. These groups will do anything for their
needs and demands to be considered by the public, or the governing authorities. There are
several types of confronting by these rivals to the Starbucks Organization for example; sit-ins,
disobedience of police, rioting, boycotts and other picketing traits, occupying buildings, blocked
and even resisting (Bernstein and Bonafede (2011).
For example, one of the recent confrontations to the Starbucks Organization is boycotting
of the Starbucks products and their stores. It is due to the claims that Starbucks have been selling
their products to the Israeli military. Also, it was also claimed that the Starbucks Organization
donated some part of their profit to the same Israeli military group. It led to a major controversy
that even made the CEO, Mr. Howard to write a letter to the president to address the issue.
However, this has been viewed to be spiked by the fact that the President of the Starbucks is
Jewish.
Due to these threats to the company’s performance there is need to develop a proper
management model that requires an understanding of the ways to handle a crisis in the case of
their occurrence. This model requires proper skills to deal with the crisis. The skills could be,
proper crisis management the crisis recoveries and even the mitigation of the crisis. There are
three ways that can be used as proper models to ensure proper crisis management. These are;
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- Getting warned of the threats and the diagnosis of the threatening troubles they’re
likely to face soon. - Choosing the proper about-turn strategies that will help evade the crisis.
- Implementing the processes that may help monitor the crisis and the company’s focus
away from the threats never to face them.
Proper steps should be developed so that Starbucks Organization never faces this
confrontation setback again. An example of a proper strategy to be implemented by the
Starbucks organization is to face the crisis head-on to avoid future threats. The management of
Starbucks may set up ways to do this, by educating the public of the truth that lies within the
company. The management, led by the company’s president, may decide to address the media.
By doing this, the public will stop the misleading brought about by the other rival groups posting
their claims to the media.
The ethical implications of this strategy are that the public will know the truth lying and
hence the Starbucks Organization being loyal and open to their faithful customers. Rivals will
always not find their strong reasons to fight the company since the Starbucks will be much open
and hence a better way of stopping confrontation diplomatically (Schultz and Gordon2011).
However, by doing this, the Starbucks Organization should be ready to more questions by the
media regarding more inner issues of the company. The company should also be ready for either
the positive or the negative reactions from their customers. It should also employ proper
strategies to cope up the negative reactions from customers, if any so that to make the loyal to
the company (Fronz, 2011).
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To achieve all this, Starbucks should ensure to create an environment of trust from the
customers by proper methods employed through the organization. The management should also
be ready to reform the organization’s mindset and be sure to observe the vulnerable assets of the
organizations. The management of the Starbucks should be courageous to tackle the crisis.
Upon conclusion, the Starbucks Organization should be ready to face future challenges
that may come their way. It hence suggests that they should develop proper and functioning
crisis management tactics. Since crisis cannot be evade, they should always be ready to face any
arising situation (Marcu, 2012).
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References.
Harvard Business School. (2014). Harvard business essentials: Crisis management.
Bernstein, J., & Bonafede, B. (2011). Manager’s guide to crisis management. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Schultz, H., & Gordon, J. (2011). Onward: How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its
soul. West Sussex [England: Wiley & Sons.
Fronz, C. (2011). Strategic management in crisis communication: A multinational approach.
Hamburg: Diplomica-Verl.
Marcu, A. R., Savarese, J. F., & Practising Law Institute. (2012). Crisis management & business
recovery: Are you prepared?. New York: Practising Law Institute.
