2 Discuss how Schultz is using leadership, structure, information and control systems, and human resources to implement strategy at Starbucks. Beginning with nine Seattle stores in 1987, Starbucks chairman and chief global strategist, Howard Schultz, has dramatically expanded the company’s cafés throughout the US and internationally. Service is anything but fast, and the coffee is expensive, but each week millions of customers around the globe hit Starbucks to sip skinny lattes or no-whip mochas.

Since it made its first acquisition in 1994, buying The Coffee Connection Inc., a 23-store Boston rival, Starbucks has pursued rapid expansion. Schultz had grown his enterprise from 400 stores in the US in 1994 to a global enterprise with 17 651 locations in 60 markets outside of North America, including Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines and India. Starbucks teamed up with foreign partners to open its first international coffeehouse in 1996 in Tokyo.