星巴克，从咖啡店到咖啡帝国
Howard Schultz is not a household name to most North Americans，but those living in urban or suburban communities know his company： the specialty coffee retailer Starbucks. In the span of a decade，Starbucks has grown into the largest coffee roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in North America. By 2000，its coffee houses could be found in more than 2，600 locations worldwide；even President Bill Clinton has been photographed with a Starbucks to-go container in his hand. According to Newsweek，Schultz’s merging with the three Cs—coffee，commerce and community—surely ranks as one of the ‘90s greatest retail successes’.
Personal Life
Schultz was born in l953 and grew up in the federally subsidized Canarsie housing project in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His mother worked as a receptionist，and his father held a variety of jobs，none of which offered decent pay or medical insurance. When“Howie”was seven，his father lost his job as a driver for a diaper service when he broke his ankle. In the ensuing months，the family was literally too poor to put food on the table. It was a memory that Schultz would carry with him into adulthood.
During his youth Schultz was ashamed of his family’s“working poor”status. He escaped the hot Brooklyn summer one year to attend camp，but would not return when he discovered that it was funded with government money for low-income families. When he began dating，he feared that his girlfriends’ fathers would ask where he lived. He turned to sports as an escape： competitive by nature，he marshaled that drive into succeeding on his high school’s football，baseball，and basketball teams. He was awarded an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University，and earned a degree in business administration in 1975，which made him the first person in his family to graduate from college.
Career Details
The inspiration for his phenomenal coffee business was a l983 visit to Milan，Italy. Schultz perceived a new American way of life in the city’s l，700 coffee bars，and he sought to recreate such forums for people to start their days or visit with friends. Schultz later described the coffee bar as“an extension of people’s front porch”in the New York Times.
In l987，at the age of 34，Howard Schultz organized a group of investors and purchased his former employer，Starbucks Coffee Company. The small Seattle-based coffee roaster took its name from the coffee-loving first mate in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Schultz renamed his company the Starbucks Corporation.
Schultz’s coffee bars were an instant success，fueling rapid growth and expansion，not only for Starbucks but also for the coffee industry as a whole. This new coffee culture supported a proliferation of stores and other sales avenues for Starbucks’ beans. The company owns all of its stores，despite the constant stream of franchise inquiries，and has been steadily opening shops throughout the country. In l992 Starbucks became the first specialty coffee company to go public，a testament to its size and prospects.
Starbucks’ first major venture outside of the northwestern part of the nation was Chicago，where mail-order sales were strong. The company’s specialty sales division developed new business through Nordstrom’s department stores and established Starbucks coffee bars within Barnes and Noble bookstores. Starbucks also formed a partnership with Pepsico，Inc.to create and distribute a new ready-to-drink coffee-based beverage，Frappuccino，as well as entered into a licensing agreement with Kraft Foods. The company even developed a relationship with Capitol Records，releasing Blue Note Blend coffee and an accompanying jazz compilation on compact disc.
When Starbucks opened its first store in New York City，it was a homecoming for Schultz，but he did not act like the conquering hero. The New York Times commented，“The soft-spoken Mr. Schultz has barely a trace of a New York accent and a timid，almost apologetic manner. When he comes to visit the 54th Street store his entrance is ultra low-key.”
Advertisers marveled at Schultz’s tactics，including his investments in such“internal marketing”rather than a large external advertising budget. In March l994 Advertising Age noted that Schultz“turned a small chain into a national brand while spending a relatively small amount on advertising. They don’t market... they ’ve established a major presence all through word-of mouth.”