Starbucks Corporation’s Problem
This assignment builds on the pre-assignment and the entire course journey, focusing this time on a particular organization you select and assisting by associating your learning from the course to develop your design thinking and innovation capabilities. The organization can be for-profit, non-profit, or a government agency located anywhere in the world, as long as you prepare for this assignment thoroughly, with the support of relevant literature and external sources, and preferably interviewing someone from the company.
The purpose of the assignment is to associate your newly captured insights with an organization of your choice. Choose an organization you are passionate about that could do with your expertise. Consider this an excellent opportunity to reflect and advise the chosen organization in growing its design thinking and innovation capacity in times of considerable uncertainty. Part of the task is to identify what is already blossoming or emerging as an increasingly upcoming problem or issue, offering a promising opportunity to solve it.
The problem can be related to, e.g., internal processes, product/solution related, branding, customer service, segmentation/channels, customer relationships, etc.
With problems, I refer to a condition that is not favorable for the company or there is a need to work to solve.
GUIDANCE
Please complete the following tasks:
Review your pre-assignment, all course materials, and assignment-related materials one more time.
Explore and decide on a target organization you are excited about and want to advise.
Make a deep dive market research based on published materials, observation, and personal email or live interviews to scope a significant problem worth solving in the organization context.
The problem could relate to something the organization could do significantly better.
Part of the task is to identify what is already blossoming or emerging as an increasingly upcoming problem or issue, offering a promising opportunity to solve it
Based on research findings, proceed to design a novel and intriguing solution by applying design and business thinking described in the course and other materials covered.
Write all this in an executive-level advisory report, which your target company can use as a base for action in their next leadership meeting.
Remember to reference actively written and interviewed sources.
DELIVERABLES
Cover with heading and name, max 6-pages of pure text with page numbering and subheadings as requested: professional document with APA references, unlimited number of complete appendices including relevant and readable tables, graphs, images, etc. Font 12, 1.0 spacing, and standard margins.
Note: executives are busy people who crave evidence to make sound decisions, so ensure you stick to the core, reference, and if you need more pages, refer to relevant appendices in the main text.
Before starting this assignment, check the rubric for what determines a quality contribution.
You are expected to submit a detailed description of your problem-solution set for the chosen organization by referring actively to relevant sources to strengthen your problem argument and then responding to the following critical areas of importance (use these headings):
Introduction and Problem Statement: Introduce the paper by leading the reading to the theme, the problem, and critical findings, along with a brief document flow overview. Remember to introduce your chosen organization briefly and any key stakeholders you plan to advise as an outcome.
Market Research: Identify and define the problem area based on your research findings regarding currency, relevancy, and societal and business significance (actively referenced, both academically and professionally).
Associate to course learnings: Apply the skill of associating as described in the course materials by identifying critical insights from the course and your individual and small group work. Discuss these essential insights and use them as inspiration when describing how they can help develop a solution to the organization's current problem. As you may recall, associating is the idea that you borrow ideas from one area and then use them as inspiration in another.
The Problem-Solution Fit: Describe your solution and provide evidence to the extent possible that it solves the problem as defined in this paper.
Concluding Discussion: Conclude by arguing, based on your newly gathered research and analyzed intelligence, why solving this problem is worthwhile, especially from a business and data collection perspective. Why is it novel and fresh, despite potential competition / alternative solutions? Finally, list concrete actions for your client to proceed and succeed in building a state-of-the-art solution.
Personal Reflection: Discuss critical findings from this assignment and the course at large for yourself; what was most valuable learning? Discuss how you enhanced your knowledge throughout the course.
Reference List
Appendices
Starbucks Corporation’s Problem
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Course
Professor’s Name
Date
Starbucks Corporation’s Problem
Introduction and Problem Statement: Company Profile
Starbucks Corporation is a global coffee maker and retailer established by Gordon Browker, Zev Siegl, and Jerry Baldwin in 1971, with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. In its early years, Starbucks focused on expanding to other territories, which it achieved because it has operations in various regions worldwide. Today, Starbucks is a global coffeehouse chain that offers coffee and other products, including tea, beverages, and food. Its mission is to “inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” (Starbucks.com, n.d).
Starbucks has always been focused on improving customer experience and has adopted a wide range of technologies to help in doing so. For instance, in 2008, it launched its online presence by opening both Facebook and Twitter accounts (Glowik, 2017). In 2014, it strengthened its digital position by launching Starbucks Mobile Order and Pay system, which allowed customers to place and pay for orders through their mobile phones and pick them up once they were ready (Starbucks, 2015). Although this strategy aimed to improve customer experience, it resulted in many problems that became prevalent during the Covid 19 pandemic. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the problems and develop a solution for the management. Moreover, the paper will provide my reflections on the course.
Market Research
Improving customer experience has been the focus for most organizations. The fast-food industry has not been an exception, and market leaders such as Starbucks have been on the drive to improve customer experiences by developing strategies to reduce their waiting times while in the stores. It also focused on improving customer experience while waiting for their orders. One strategy the organization implemented to improve customer waiting experience was through the adoption and implementation of Wi-Fi connection, which allowed customers to connect to the internet while in Starbucks stores (Fader & Toms, 2018). Another strategy was the installation of televisions in stores. Although the company was doing all these, the core of improving customer experience was to reduce waiting times. To address this, the company adopted a mobile ordering system that allowed customers to order and pay for their orders through their mobile phones. Through this technology, customers could only come, pick and leave the stores. Although this strategy's adoption was to improve customer experience, it resulted in many problems, including in-store traffic jams, a new portion of unsatisfied customers, and overwhelmed staff.
Starbucks’ mobile ordering system allows customers to order and pay for orders by not queuing. After placing an order, the system gives customers an estimated time to wait before they pick up their orders. After the order is ready, customers are notified of a pickup, and they walk straight to the pickup point, ignoring those in line to make their orders at the counters (Starbucks.com, n.d). Since customers are provided with an estimated time before picking up their orders, most have resorted to placing their orders before leaving their homes.
The organization has placed priorities on mobile orders compared to those customers who walk into the store and make their orders at the counter. When pickup customers start flocking in to pick up their orders, they are allowed to cut through the line and get to the pickup point, which customers who are waiting in line have considered rude while others are walking out (Henderson, 2017). Since mobile orders are highly prioritized, customers waiting in line are attended to with a different priority than pickup customers, implying that inline waiting consumers have to wait longer than before.
Although customers are supposed to be ready to pick up their orders, some arrive very late and would get angry if the staff threw away their orders, they have cooled down or melted (Dominko, 2021). Sometimes the staff is forced to remake the orders because customers have paid. Moreover, the system allows customers to modify their orders as often as they want, and this causes confusion and delays in the preparation of orders. Sometimes customers may modify their orders when the one they made earlier has already been prepared, requiring the staff to start preparing the new order afresh if they need help understanding that they modified their orders late (Anderson, 2021). This conduct results in slowing down drive-thru times and a new group of unsatisfied customers because their orders needed to be made the way they wanted.
According to Starbucks employees, the mobile ordering system allows several orders to arrive simultaneously. Some have reported that the orders start trickling in as soon as the locations open up, while others claim that they get as many orders as seven in a minute, resulting in delays for both in-store waiting and online consumers. This behavior has resulted in an overwhelmed workforce that has to tend to in-store and mobile order customers, especially during the busiest hours (Dean, 2021). The staff is under pressure to keep all customers (both in-store and online) customers.
Some clients place their orders while at the location or on their way to the store, not giving the staff enough time to prepare the orders. Some customers yell at or shout at the staff if the orders are still being prepared by the time they show up. The employees have also claimed that sometimes customers place orders whose ingredients have been depleted and cannot be prepared, putting pressure on the staff to ensure that the orders are ready because customers expect their orders when they arrive (Dean, 2021). Most employees have claimed that the mobile ordering system has made things difficult because sometimes it does not update the current situation of a store, allowing customers to make many orders and cannot be prepared. This situation has increased the workload for employees due to the customer changing ordering habits and have become more aggressive and confrontational (Russ & Love, 2021). Amidst the increased number of orders and intense workload at Starbucks, an understaffed workforce has to keep up with these demands (Dominko, 2021). Some employees believe that the management and customers view them as robots, yet they are underpaid. This belief has reduced their motivation and called for the unionization of Starbucks employees (Behr, 2021).
The Problem-Solution Fit
In solving the problems created by the mobile ordering system at Starbucks, the organization should increase its workforce, adjust its ordering system to accept a certain number of orders at a go, and have a different pickup point for mobile orders. A separate preparation and pickup point imply that mobile orders will have a different process from in-store orders. This kind of approach will address both customer and employee concerns.
Starbucks’ mobile ordering systems increased the number of orders daily, implying that the workload for employees also increased. Increasing the workforce will ensure enough human capital to tend to the increased orders without the staff being overwhelmed. Moreover, this will ensure enough workforce to make the idea of having a separate pick-up point for mobile orders a success. The available staff is already overwhelmed with the current operations, and adding a different pick-up point will make the staff overwhelmed. A different pick-up point will solve the problem of increased delays for in-store waiting customers be...