Did Process Improvement Destroy Starbucks? 9 October, 2015 by James Lawther The Memo I came across a memo from Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks the other day. From: Howard Schultz Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth... from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have led to the watering down of the Starbucks experience... Many of these decisions were probably right at the time... but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista. This coupled with the need for freshly roasted coffee in every North American city... moved us toward the decision... for flavor-locked packaging... We achieved fresh roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores; the loss of our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer, and once again stripping the store of tradition and our heritage... Now that I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe, we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it's time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience... Discussion Question Discuss the problems Starbucks faced with process improvement. A process improvement only counts if the customer benefits. What do you suggest to the CEO of Starbucks in order to improve customer service? minimum 300 words