Starbuck’s new CEO, Brian Niccol is wasting no time – now that he’s made his decisions – in imple-menting them. Just a week after he said it’s time to make his promised cuts, he’s announced specific Starbuck’s menu changes and corporate layoffs…
A Starbuck’s Frappuccio beverage: Time-consuming and difficult to prepare.
It was one of the ‘old’ menu items annoying both fans and servers…
“Not commonly ordered,” or, “like other items on our menu.”
Starbucks suits! Get ready to ride the whirlwind! New CEO Brian Niccol has announced the troubled premium coffee company will soon start laying off an estimated 1,000 corporate-level staff under his mandate to reduce costs and simplify Starbuck’s cumbersome business model.
The management cuts will largely be, “open and unfilled positions.’ But a significant number will in-volve posts where folks are actively ‘working’. Sounds as though there’s some question as to whether Starbuck’s corporate machine is humming along as efficiently as it should.
At the same time…
Niccol has assured staff and fans that no layoffs are planned on the front lines. If anything, he wants the service end of the business to be more efficient. To that end, he’s been telling the world he’ll cut up to 30 percent of the premium coffee shop’s current menu.
We now know menu cuts will include, “some Frappuccino blended drinks, Royal English Breakfast Latte and White Hot Chocolate [specialties],” the company explained in its official release yesterday. “These items aren’t commonly purchased, can be complex to make, or are like other beverages on our menu.”
That’s going to make Starbuck’s servers – famously called baristas – happier. They’ll have far fewer complex, seldom-ordered bevs to remember the recipes for!
Employee discontent has been a significant issue in the deterioration of morale among both staff and fans over the past year and a bit. All part of a complex situation that’s resulted in four consec-utive fiscal quarters of sales declines.
My take
Niccol – Starbuck’s 4th new CEO in the past 2 years – has declared his intention to bring the coffee purveyor back to it’s roots – to put the soul back into the business. To that end he’s already decreed that the business model revert to something more like it’s original approach.
In the beginning, the founders intended Starbucks to be a community hangout, a place to bring friends and neighbours together. A ‘third place’, between home and office. After a few months of re-search and observation, Niccol announced the company had drifted far off that course. And he was working on a ‘Back to Starbuck’s’ plan which he set in motion a weeks ago.
It appears that the vast majority of Starbuck’s fans are pleased with Niccol’s changes. And staff is applauding his plan, as well. It certainy looks like the ‘Back to Starbuck’s’ plan is getting off to a good start. Meanwhile, everyone involved is waiting to see what the next quarterly earning report has to say about the real issue: sales and profits…
~ Maggie J.