Case Study #14- Driving Innovation and Growth at Starbucks: From Howard Schultz to Kevin Johnson
Read the Starbucks case study located in the section titled Case Studies in your textbook concerning the following situation:
In 2017, Seattle-based global coffee chain Starbucks Corporation was named the third most admired company in the world and the number one company worldwide in the food service industry by Fortune. The magazine also ranked Starbucks as number one in the areas of innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment, and quality of products and services. Since inception, Starbucks had innovated in its business model. Starbucks’ passion to innovate manifested in the way the company sourced its coffee beans, developed new beverages, created unique store concepts, and achieved digital breakthroughs.
Your report and overview should address the following key strategic issues:
• Describe the general environment that Starbucks faces. What are the segments in the general environment that relate to Starbucks’ situation? What are the opportunities and threats derived from the factors from the general environment? What are the possible future implications of some of the external factors?
• Analyze the competitor environment and identify the competitors. Has Starbucks done enough to outperform its competitors?
• Analyze Starbucks’ next move in terms of growth and expansion. Based on your analysis, what additional recommendations would you make to help Starbucks achieve its goals?
Submission Details:
● Based on your research, write succinct discussions of each of these items.
● Present your work as a 3–4-page report in a Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
● Support your responses with examples. Cite any sources in APA format.
● Name your document
Week 2
Case Study #13—Publix Supermarkets, Inc.
Read the Publix case study located in the section titled Case Studies in your textbook concerning the following situation:
Shortly after being named as CEO in 2016, the Publix Board of Directors authorized Todd Jones to move forward with opening ten new stores in the highly competitive Richmond, Virginia market. The company’s expansions out of its home market of Florida have paid off handsomely so far, with Publix now a close number 3 in market share in Georgia and gaining on its competition in Tennessee. Stressing service and a unique store experience, Jones believed Publix would remind Richmond shoppers of the now-shuttered, service-oriented Ukrop’s Super Markets and allow the company to quickly gain market share at the expense of its grocery nemeses, Walmart and Kroger. However, Richmond also marked the first time Publix would face Wegmans, a grocer with a similar background and focus on service, as well as a new European arrival, Lidl. Would the expansion work?
Your report and overview should address the following key strategic issues:
• Assess Publix’s business-level strategy. Has the company’s business-level strategy been successful?
• How does Publix’s strategy stand up against competitive rivalry in the industry?
• Review the important elements of Publix’s external and internal environments. Analyze key factors in the SWOT analysis.
• Weigh the challenges confronting Publix. What are the greatest risks for Publix? What recommendations can be made to support Publix’s growth and profitability objectives?
Submission Details:
● Present your analysis as a 3–4-page report in a Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
● Support your responses with examples. Cite any sources in APA format.
● Name your document MGT4070_W2_LastName_FirstInitial.doc
Week 3
Case Study #2—Baidu’s Business Model and Its Evolution
Read the Baidu case study located in the section titled Case Studies in your textbook concerning the following situation:
Co-founded by Li and his friend Eric Xu in 2000, Baidu was China’s first home-grown search engine and was created with the mission of providing the best way for people to find information. The company offered a broad range of products and services including search services, Online-to-Offline (O2O) services, and an online video platform. Baidu’s investments in technology along with its focus on local content helped it maintain a dominant position in the rapidly growing search engine market in China. In order to establish a global footprint, Baidu forayed into emerging markets such as Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, India, and Thailand where Internet usage continued to climb. As of July 2016, Baidu commanded over 80% of the Chinese search market, and was among the world’s top five search engines in terms of market share.
In May 2016, Baidu planned to overhaul its business model from a search-oriented model to one based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) due to a slowing revenue growth in its core search business. The company planned to focus on developing products in areas such as automatic translation, voice search, and driverless vehicles. Li also planned to emphasize user experience over income and set up a department to root out any behavior that might hurt user experience.
Li had a tough task on his hands and analysts were waiting to see how he would navigate the challenges faced by Baidu.
The following points are to guide a review and discussion of some important concepts.
• Review Baidu’s general environment segments and elements and describe in detail all the elements associated with this segment. Include three to four perspectives of the general environment.
• What are the segments in the general environment that relate to Baidu’s situation? Be specific. Provide examples and details.
• Analyze Baidu’s intended international corporate-level strategy. How was it strategized and what led to these countries of interest?
• Identify Baidu’s current challenges. Based on your analysis, what additional recommendations would you make to help Baidu achieve its goals?
• Discuss the uncertainties and risks of doing business in different regions throughout the world.
Submission Details:
• Present your analysis as a 4–5-page report in a Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
• Support your responses with examples. Cite any sources in APA format.
• Name your document MGT4070_W3_LastName_FirstInitial.doc
• Submit your document to the Submissions Areaby the due date assigned.
Week 4
Case Study #1—Alphabet Inc.: Reorganizing Google
Read the Alphabet case study located in the section titled Case Studies in your textbook concerning the following situation:
In October 2015, in an unexpected move, global technology giant Google Inc (Google) restructured itself as Alphabet Inc (Alphabet), a new holding company under which Google’s non-core businesses, including self-driving cars, life sciences research, high-speed Internet access, and investment divisions, were spun off as distinct entities and separated from the company’s Internet operations such as Android, YouTube, and the Google search engine. The businesses were reorganized into two reporting segments: ‘Google’ and ‘Other Bets’. This marked a massive shift from the earlier setup in which Google was in charge of a number of diverse companies, some of which carried it far afield from its core search business. Under the new structure, a number of businesses including Google operated as subsidiaries of Alphabet and were run independently, each with its own CEO. According to a statement posted by Larry Page co-founder of Google, on the company’s official blog, “Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related. Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence […]. This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google.”
The following points are to guide a review and discussion of some important concepts.
• Discuss Alphabet’s corporate governance and evaluate the effectiveness of Alphabet’s board of directors.
• Describe Alphabet’s corporate-level strategy and characterize its level of diversification. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the company’s organizational structure. Does the organizational design effectively support the needs of Alphabet’s corporate-level strategy?
• Identify Alphabet’s current challenges and describe Alphabet’s next move in terms of growth and expansion. Provide an analysis of what additional recommendations would be required to be done to help Alphabet achieve its goals.
Submission Details:
● Present your analysis as a 3–4-page report in a Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
● Support your responses with examples. Cite any sources in APA format.
● Name your document MGT4070_W4_LastName_FirstInitial.doc
● Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.
Week 5
Case Stud#16—The trivago Way—Growing Without Growing Up?
Read the trivago case study located in the section titled Case Studies in your textbook concerning the following situation:
In 2016, trivago’s field of business could be described as hotel-related online marketing and distribution. The firm provided a two-sided, online meta-search platform that connected travelers seeking hotel accommodations with more than 200 booking sites and 1.3 million hotels. With 1.4 billion visits and 487 million qualified referrals1 in 2016, trivago was the largest hotel meta-search platform in the world. What differentiated trivago’s business model from that of online travel agents (OTAs) was its value proposition as an independent information provider. trivago did not sell hotel rooms. Instead, it organized large amounts of hotel-related information from multiple sources to offer the optimal basis for making a booking decision. Thus, trivago helped users convert their initial interest into a clear, specific booking intention, thereby fulfilling their personal needs.
The following points are to guide a review and discussion of some important concepts.
• Describe trivago’s corporate-level strategy and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the company’s matrix organizational structure. Does the organizational design effectively support the needs of trivago’s corporate-level strategy?
• How does the management innovation activity at trivago facilitate achievement of the company’s corporate objectives? What recommendations would you make to improve either the design or implementation of the company’s management innovation efforts?
• Using a balanced scorecard framework, outline the financial and strategic organizational controls used by trivago to drive management behavior and firm performance. Are the corporate criteria balanced? Are they yielding desired outcomes for the company?
Submission Details:
● Present your report as an 8–12-page Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
● Support your responses with examples. Cite any sources in APA format.