| Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX, HKSE: 4337.HK) is the American chain of coffeehouses and the world's largest coffeehouse. The management company, the Starbucks Corporation has its corporate headquarters in Seattle, Washington State.
History:
The chain of coffeehouses was found in 1971. The coffeehouse was named in the honor of the character in the novel by Herman Melville "Moby Dick", and the logo of the chain of the coffeehouses is the "two-tailed siren".
Proprietors and management:
The Chairman of the Board of Directors is Howard Schultz and the Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks is James “Jim” Donald.
Business:
The Starbucks Corporation operates a chain of 17 thousand coffeehouses and shops in 35 countries, from which, approximately 7500 belong to the company and the others are either franchisees or operating under license. Also, the company is developing a chain of music shops “Hear Music”.
The total employee strength in the chain of coffeehouses is around 140 thousand. According to Hoovers in 2006, the company's earnings were $7.8 billion, with a net profit of $564 million.
Interesting facts:
One of the main requirements during the selection of the premises for the coffeehouse Starbucks is that the entrance door should look to the East or to the South and never ever to the North. According to the words of Scott Bradberry, one of the founders of the brand Starbucks, he explains that the customers should enjoy the daylight but the sunrays should not directly fall on their faces
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This Tuesday all Starbucks shops across the country closed at precisely 5:30 p.m. for 3 hours. The reason was the scheduled retraining of the drink-making employees, known as baristas. Starbucks has seen better times - once a favorite of Wall Street, the company is now trying to increase sales to its past levels, and is closing over 100 shops with slow sales. Tuesday 3 hours employee retraining program was part of the struggle to increase sales and keep customers happy.
