Starbucks: Strategies and Competitive Landscape
Delivered November 8, 2019. Contributor: Benjamin H.
Goals
To obtain information about Starbucks, including its strategies for 2020 in terms of user experience and digital marketing, as well as a competitive landscape for the company. This research would be used in developing an account plan and account-based marketing (ABM) strategy.
Early Findings
- Over the past four years, Starbucks has been working on reshaping its approach to technology. This includes a change of name to 'Starbucks Technology' from 'Starbucks IT'.
- In July this year, the company announced plans to dive deeper into the realm of technology.
- As of May 2019, Starbucks started using reinforcement learning technology from Microsoft Azure "to give customers order suggestions based on inventory at locations near them, weather, time and past orders".
- The company's digital initiatives accounted for a third of its 6% store sales growth during the third quarter of 2019.
- One of the major strategies laid out by Starbucks this year was the continued focus on its app-based rewards program. This program hit 17.2 million active users in 90-days and is growing at 14% year-over-year.
- As of October this year, the company revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a crucial role in its overall digital strategy from now on.
- Competitors such as McDonald’s and KFC have already started experimenting with AI.
- According to Investopedia, Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's are Starbucks' main competitors.
Proposed next steps:
You need to be the project owner to select a next step.