Starbucks Makes the Right First Step

I wrote about it in an article: Starbucks' Ticket to Ride.

Guess what? Few questions about their emerging competition or spruce-ups needed in stores and service were asked or answered. And McCartney worked as a tool of distraction. Most of the business media coverage focused on the Beatle, not the bean business.

Enter Schultz, this year, armed with a grab bag of solutions to the company's troubles -- troubles that he readily acknowledges while standing in front of thousands of shareholders.

"This," he said, "is the first time the U.S. business is under pressure. It's a character test." He also pointed toward the weakened economy, but did not use it as the complete escape hatch many do. He pointed the finger in no uncertain terms at company operations: "We somehow evolved from a culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to a culture of, in a way, mediocrity and bureaucracy."

Best of all, there was no trotting out of Ringo to a swooning assembly of business media, who would then spend much of their allotted space talking about something other than store operations.

Whether Schultz's collection of solutions, from soliciting customer criticisms to starting the caffeinated beverage version of a frequent flier program, will stem the tide is an open question. But if we've learned anything from Countrywide, Bear and to a much lesser but still legitimate degree Starbucks last year, it's that Starbucks -- unlike like its two ugly sisters -- took a good first step back.

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