Howard Schultz is BACK.
I have not made any secrets about Howard Schultz being one of my favorite CEO’s, even though he had not been the CEO of Starbucks for quite a few years, and not while I had been a fan of the company. Well, today Jim Donald stepped down as Starbucks’ CEO and Howard has said that he will become the CEO for the long term and lead Starbucks back to where it should be.
With the stock price dropping 50% over the past 12 months and hitting a 4 year closing low last Friday Starbucks had to do something to help their stock and this appears to be the biggest step they could have made. Howard took Starbucks out of a bean selling coffee shop in Pike Place to the International company that it has become. Already, the stock has jumped 10% since the announcement and we will see where it goes from here.
Since Howard instilled the original values of the Starbucks Experience, I am looking forward to seeing what will happen over the next 6 months to a year. We will see poor performing stores closed, better training for front line “parnters,” and an overhall on the entire coffee experience. One prediction I will make, some kind of change to the breakfast sadwich stations. They create an aroma that covers the coffee smell that I understand Howard hates. I know they’re a high margin item, but if Howard wants to take back the coffee shop experience, I see a change happening here.
Oh, and for those of you that I asked about investing in SBUX last Friday…man, I wish I would have pulled the trigger. I still think there is alot of room for growth. What do you think, will SBUX bounce back to the high $20’s low $30’s?
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Burnt Cheese Smell at Starbucks, Result of complete loss of vision, dies at age 2.
Burnt Cheese died on January 7th, when Howard Schultz, inventor of all things good, choked it in it’s sleep.
Burnt Cheese Smell is survived by Crappy Music, Trendy Merchandise, Dirty Bathrooms, Espresso Machines that are too tall, and 30,000 grandchildren.
I love Howard Schultz too. I think he’s awesome. I think Starbucks has a great business model and they do a lot for many of the communities that they are a part of. I hope that they start making a comeback… I hope the continue to focus on coffee thought. I am not a big fan of them selling music, and all the other non-coffee related things…