How Starbucks Got Its Mojo Back

I found a fun article and I have breifly summarzed it and wrote my reflection. I hope everyone enjoys reading it! How Starbucks Got Its Mojo Back. The excerpt from Howard Schultz’s book “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul”, briefly explains how the current CEO Howard Schultz saved Starbucks from falling off the cliff. It starts out by talking about how Starbuck grew into one of the biggest global franchising coffee store with the passion of Mr. Schultz. Starbucks seemed to be rapidly growing until the year 2000 when Mr. Schultz stepped down as CEO to become the chairman. However, in the year 2007, Starbucks could not meet the projected earnings and Mr. Schultz returns as the CEO. After his return, Starbuck still struggled to maintain its customers. It was time that Starbucks had to become creative. In the year 2008, Starbucks tied with the financial crisis, seemed to get in a bigger slump. Starbucks closed down 200 stores and canceled 348 store openings. Mr. Schultz had to take serious actions. He made two decisions, training the 135,000 baristas about pouring espresso and holding a workshop with the managers of Starbucks. These two decisions were proved to be successful. Not only did the public view positively of the workshop which was held in New Orleans which was an attempt to help recover the city from Hurricane Katrina, but the training of the baristas was successful as well. Finally, Starbucks also was very successful in introducing instant coffee with VIA. It was clear that Starbuck grew out of its past slump. The language Mr. Schultz uses is seemingly easy to follow and straight forward. He does not use complicated words and delivers his message in an efficient manner. The excerpt was set out in a chronological order. This excerpt seems to be more like a commercial of the book itself. I really could not understand the point of this excerpt other than advertising. Newsweek seems to be promoting the book written by Howard Schultz. In my personal view this has a negative effect of the book since the main story is already reveled and I doubt if people will be willing to read the book. To be a critic of this article/excerpt, it seems that reporters and writers of Newsweek could not be bothered to write an article, so instead they decided to post an excerpt. I wonder who approved such meaningless excerpt which intended to be an advertisement. I really was disappointed with Newsweek’s style or so to say characteristics. It is well known the magazine Newsweek takes a liberal stance. It can be deducted that since they are more liberal than other magazines, such excerpt could be posted. It would have been better if the reporters of Newsweek interviewed Howard Schultz and asked him questions about his book. In this manner, readers will be more curious about the book will want to read the book. In my personal view the approach of Newsweek magazine was totally a failure. The editors should be more considerate of the readers and provide meaningful and useful information, not just plain advertisment.