ИСТОРИЯ. Общая история

Некрасов С. Ю.

Научный руководитель: ассистент кафедры иностранных языков

Анисимова Светлана Анатольевна

Донецкий национальный университет экономики и торговли имени

Михаила Туган - Барановского, Украина

The History of the biggest coffee corporation

To sum it all up the Coffee Giant known as Starbucks Coffee, made a huge impact in all of our lives, from the way we drink our coffee, to the type of coffee we choose. Coffee was never such an idealized item until Starbucks Coffee company showed up and capitalized the entire industry, instead of ordering a plain coffee with cream and sugar we now have a wider variety to choose from, including cappuccino, espresso, different coffee flavors, Irish cream, French vanilla, and others, there is just so much more it's incredible. Even though all this was available before the Coffee Mongol commercialized coffee completely, it didn't have much interest with any of us, and that’s the phenomenon. Now we can't seem to live without all these wild coffee flavors.

Let’s take a step back in time: at the beginning when the coffee giant first started out in Seattle in 1971, Starbucks coffee was just three friends with a passion for fresh gourmet coffee, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. They opened a small shop and began selling fresh-roasted, gourmet coffee beans and brewing and roasting accessories. In 1980 Zev Siegl wanted out to explore his opportunities elsewhere. By that time Starbucks coffee was the biggest roaster in Washington with six different stores. In 1981 the little coffee giant managed to get the attention of Howard Schultz, a plastics salesman that noticed the huge supply of plastic drip coffee thermoses they were buying from Hammarplast.

Starbucks Coffee 1982, history was marked forever when Baldwin hired the highly energetic Schultz as the new marketing developer. It was not long after that he was sent on a business trip to an international housewares show in Milan, Italy 1983. Schultz was amazed and amused with the vibrant coffee culture of Italy. In another town nearby Verona, Schultz had his first caffe’ latte’ and, as he noticed people at the cafe talking and laughing exiguously while sipping on their coffees in the luxurious surroundings, ideas starting flowing. He describes the idea hit him as an epiphany: "I could start a community gathering place like the great coffee house of Italy in the United States!" he thought to himself. This idea would place Starbucks coffee history into the records of business journals for many years to come.

Latter on, while back in the United States, Schultz's idea did not go over well with Baldwin and didn't think it would be a good idea to wager over into the restaurant business as well distracting him from his original goal of selling whole coffee beans. However, he did let him try out a small espresso bar in the corner of one of the coffee stores. It was an immediate success and Schultz branched out on his own and opened Giornale, a coffee house named after Italy’s largest newspaper, ‘The Daily’.

1987 Starbucks coffee was up for sale and Schultz managed to raise $3.8 million by convincing investors of his vision, one hundred and twenty-five outlets in the next five years. Schultz modified the Starbucks bare-breasted mermaid logo into a more socially acceptable figure, changed the name of Giornale to Starbucks and converted the six existing Starbucks coffee roasting shops into a more elegant, suitable coffee houses. Starbucks coffee history was just starting to take form.

Shultz reached his goal and more by 125 stores in 5 years, 1992 there were 165 cafes up and running. Today there are more then 8,000 stores in 30 different countries and annual revenues over $7.5 billion.

We must to say some words about logo of Starbucks. Starbucks named after a character in the novel Moby Dick. The current company logo, modeled after the 15th century Norse woodcut, is a twin-tailed mermaid or siren as she's known in Greek mythology. The logo has an interesting history. The original logo, the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully-visible double fish tail. The original logo has raised some controversy because of the bare chest, but the logo continues to appear on some of the products like the Starbucks Anniversary Blend coffee bags. Both the original logos seem to be perfect on wooden crates. In the second version, her chest was covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. The logo also inherited the stars from the Giornale logo. In the current version, her navel and chest are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails.

The philosophy of Starbucks is very important. When you are standing in line, you must sea a magnet to the left of the sales counter that said, “Be welcoming; offer everyone a sense of belonging.” It is known to Starbucks partners as “The Green Apron book”, it was an employee manual in miniature. This book doesn’t have a rule; in their place were suggestions, goals, and the empowerment to make every customer’s experience a memorable one. Not everyone has access to “The Green Apron Book”, but Joseph Michelli’s book “The Starbucks Experience” is an excellent alternative.  In it, the author shares five distinct principles that, if implemented, can transform a company (or an individual) from the inside out.

Since Starbucks is not a franchised company, it is able to create a predictable experience for the customer.  Part of this lies in the store layout, the coffee drinks, the music, and the people working there.  In fact, the people are so critical to the business philosophy that the company treats them incredibly well (health benefits for those working over 20 hour/week, for starters).  In turn, they work hard and they are knowledgeable about their main product (coffee), and will sometimes go to great lengths to make a customer’s experience memorable. In addition to business concepts and principles, Michelli provides numerous real-life examples of how the Starbucks philosophy works.  These stories are well worth the price of the book.  From baristas devising a unique way to serve drinks at their flagship location in Seattle to a training method used to help partners create the Starbucks experience for customers (it’s a game), the Starbucks way is shown to be both distinctive and effective.  Michelli includes both successes and failures, providing a refreshing change of pace as well as proof that the largest coffee company in the world sometimes makes mistakes.