Selling piece of a company
The professor went over the 4th thing that we need to look at in our case analysis which is the main
selling point of the company. In Starbucks’ case, it’s their customer experience which is essentially
selling the Italian coffee house experience. Throughout my analysis for this case, I struggled with
connecting the SWOT and other frameworks to the bigger picture. Initially I tried to give “next
steps” for Starbucks by focusing them on building their strengths which was their coffee and
connection to customers, but I can see now that I should look at the bigger picture which is
maintaining and selling their selling point.
From what the professor said about the stores of a company having to function similarly in order
for the company to be cohesive, I interpreted that the different parts of a case (such as SWOT)
should work as gears to make the overall “machine” (company & its selling piece) function
smoothly. I’m a very visual person and struggle to understand concepts without some type of
example, so this helped me understand what should be guiding my analysis through the case.
Opportunity from SWOT
Last class the professor explained that under opportunities, they shouldn’t be the actual decision
the company takes but an opportunity that allows the company to decide whether they want to
pursue it. This class, he further explained that we need to be specific. For example, a Starbucks
opportunity me and many other classmates mentioned was “expanding globally”. But with what he
said, it should instead target a specific area that is based on a fact such as “Expansion into China
with their love for coffee and nightlife”.
Project – professor
After watching the project, the professor put emphasis on what we should focus on like:
-
What are we selling and to who
Customer target: Are customer needs being satisfied? What are they? What value are we
creating?
Industry attractiveness: porter’s 5 forces
Project – speaker
The speaker/CEO from the video mentioned his service being a resort + eco-village for residency.
From his presentation/explanation of his project, I took away that in order to work towards an
idea, you first need to start with the environment. For example, he mentioned that to stop smoking,
you need to clean your living space for the right mindset. This concept can work for creating new
products or for doing a case analysis; before diving deep, we should look at the overall picture and
asses what we have, clean it up by determining what is relevant and irrelevant, then analyze so that
we have a solid foundation and mind-space to work off of.
He also told us to think outside the box and redefine standards when working on our final project
and it reminds me of when we were told to have fun and be creative before working on our first
case analysis. I feel like I’ve been feeling more pressure on saying the right or wrong things, but I’m
forgetting that it’s an analysis that’s looking for our unique and interesting insights while hitting the
key points.