New Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s goals – Sensible?

Here’s something I had posted on LinkedIn about 3 weeks ago, following new Starbucks CEO Brian Noccol’s first earnings call and some major decisions taken.

On the call, Niccol’s said one of the goals for Starbucks was to serve (to-go) customers in four minutes or less. The chap apparently said ‘four minutes or less’ 15 times!

Reminded me of a visit to a Starbucks outlet back in 2012 which was a bit of an inefficient wait. Post link here.

Let’s hope Niccol’s knows what he’s doing. Because, back in the 1980’s and 1990’s, when Starbucks expanded a bit too rapidly, it had a phase where it had to decide if it wanted to be the affordable neighbourhood cafe or a bit more premium one. And then it went on a spree culling all the poorly performing outlets and settled into the more refined cafe experience. Because it had to be one way or the other.

While Niccol’s did mention different focuses for patrons sitting in, and their to-go customers, the stress on the ‘four minutes or less’ literally brings him to a similar crossroads as the the one the company saw back in the days of rapid expansion.

While I’m not a big fan of the chain, it is an interesting challenge. Let’s see how his strategy shapes out.