IT Strategy for Starbucks: Implementing Key Recommendations

This case study analyzes Starbucks Corporation and provides recommendations for improving its business processes through strategic IT implementation. It focuses on three key recommendations: penetrating untapped rural markets, building an on-the-go home delivery system, and improving the mobile app. For rural market penetration, the study suggests using IT to enhance transportation and logistics, including tracking supply vehicles and monitoring raw material stock levels. For the home delivery system, it recommends creating a database for online orders and implementing a GPS tracking system for customers. Regarding the mobile app, the study proposes gathering user feedback through online forms, integrating a secure online payment system, and incorporating the loyalty program, all requiring significant IT development and integration. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wealth of study resources, including solved assignments and past papers, to support students in their academic endeavors.

Running head: PUBLIC POLICY AND STRATEGY
Public Policy and Strategy
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PUBLIC POLICY AND STRATEGY
Strategic Analysis of the Starbucks Corporation:
The Starbucks Corporation is one of the biggest coffeehouse chain and coffee
company based in the United States of America. This organization was found in Seattle,
Washington in the year 1971 (Campbell & Helleloid, 2016). Currently, this organization is
functional worldwide with their main coffee products. In the given case study of the
Starbucks Corporation, some recommendations have been shared for improving the business
process of the organization. Some of this recommendation can be executed efficiently when
Information Technology will be integrated with it. Thus how IT can be part of these
recommendations will be evaluated for three of the ten recommendation.
Penetration into untapped rural markets:
One of the ten recommendations was penetration into the untapped rural markets as
the market of the U.S. is heading towards a saturation point. This can be a good strategy for
the Starbucks Corporation for expanding their business areas. To enter in the rural market
Starbucks Corporation must initiate some strategy for executing their operations. First of all,
to enter the rural market, the Starbucks Corporation needs an efficient transportation system
and a logistics supply chain (Engelbrecht et al., 2015). Also, to serve in the rural areas the
Starbucks Corporation needs to ensure that the raw materials for their coffee products are
coming timely.
To achieve an efficient transportation Starbucks Corporation can use Information
Technology. The IT systems can help the organization to track the movement of the supply
vehicles which will help the business estimate the arrivals time of the raw materials.
According to the arrival time, the management can take appropriate decisions for the
business. The logistics supply chain is very much important for the organization and
inclusion of the IT makes this more efficient which is beneficial for the organization

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(Christopher, 2016). The inclusion of IT in the supply chain management can provide the
opportunity of the Electronic Data Interchange and the EDI can provide various of
advantages to the business of the organization which includes instant information processing,
cost efficiency, and high productivity as it is very much important for the organisation to
ensure that the raw materials are coming timely to the rural areas IT can be implemented in
this case. The stock monitoring system of the IT can efficiently monitor the raw material
stock of the rural area outlets and can alert the branch as per the stock update (Holvoet &
Inberg, 2013). Thus the stocks can be replenished within time, and the business of the
organisation will flow smoothly.
Building on the go home delivery system:
In the current scenario, most of the peoples have a smartphone with them, and the
trend of the online ordering is gone too far. Most of the users now prefer online ordering
rather than going to the outlets. For this reason on the go home delivery system has been
recommended in this case. A proper IT infrastructure is needed for implementing this type of
system. First of all, a database needs to be created which will record the online requests of the
customers. As per the request of the customer, the correct product will be assigned to a
delivery boy, and the delivery boy will deliver the product to the customer. For the
convenience of the customers, a GPS tracking system can be implemented which will help
the customers (Cummins et al., 2013) to track the delivery boy.
Improving the mobile app:
As the 10% of the Starbucks Corporation’s business is driven by their mobile app,
improvement of the mobile app is highly recommended. For ease of use of Starbuck’s
application first of all feedback need to be gathered from the users and to gather feedback of
the application users a feedback gathering system needs to be developed using the
appropriate software and then the feedback forms need to be hosted online so that the users

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can fill the form. In such of the cases, information technology is needed for implementing an
online form.
Also, a payment process system also recommends to integrate with the current mobile
application. For this case first, the Starbucks Corporation need to develop an online payment
system which will consist an online secure payment gateway through which the customers
can pay for the services given by Starbucks Corporation (Roy & Venkateswaran, 2014). To
develop this implementation of the IT system is required. Also, the IT systems are required to
monitor the status of a payment and to store the payments record for future use.
The Starbucks Corporation’s loyalty program also need to be integrated into the
current mobile application. In such of the cases programming of the mobile application need
to be done again for integrating the loyalty program in the mobile application. In the case of
altering the program, IT is needed as the communication framework of the application with
the server need to be changed.

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References:
Campbell, K., & Helleloid, D. (2016). Starbucks: Social responsibility and tax
avoidance. Journal of Accounting Education, 37, 38-60.
Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Cummins, C., Orr, R., O’Connor, H., & West, C. (2013). Global positioning systems (GPS)
and microtechnology sensors in team sports: a systematic review. Sports
medicine, 43(10), 1025-1042.
Engelbrecht, J., Booysen, M. J., van Rooyen, G. J., & Bruwer, F. J. (2015). Survey of
smartphone-based sensing in vehicles for intelligent transportation system
applications. IET Intelligent Transport Systems, 9(10), 924-935.
Holvoet, N., & Inberg, L. (2013). Taking stock of monitoring and evaluation systems in the
health sector: Findings from Rwanda and Uganda. Health Policy and Planning, 29(4),
506-516.
Roy, S., & Venkateswaran, P. (2014, March). Online payment system using steganography
and visual cryptography. In Electrical, Electronics and Computer Science (SCEECS),
2014 IEEE Students' Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.