Review: Onward

Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

""Onward" covers roughly 2005 - 2010 in the life of Starbucks, a time when the stock hits a long-term low and starts to recover, and the author returns as CEO. Schultz spends a lot of time describing his and others angst over decisions and cheerleading about passion, which are all too common in these types of books. Schultz comes across as passionate about his shops, but also quite pompous. His story about the foray into social media makes it sound like Starbucks took big risks early on, but that is being over dramatic. There were four sections I appreciated for their business insight. One was the consideration of working with the "World of Warcraft" folks to try to draw the young male demographic into their shops. It didn't pan out, but this anecdote showed how Starbucks was open to odd ideas. Second was the description of one of Schultz's trips to China. This story illustrated well that Starbucks employees, in China even, have the ability to try things out, like new foods, even if they will likely never be sold by Starbucks. The story about Via instant coffee showed the company's willingness to do extensive research on a product extension. However, Shultz undercuts this story by mentioning that instant coffee detractors are mostly in the US, but instant coffee sells much better in overseas markets -- makes you wonder why they didn't speed that product to market more. The best part was the description of the Clover brewed coffee machine and the theater of espresso-based drinks. I hadn't noticed the theater aspect until I read this, but I see his point - baristas face the customer while working these drinks but not others. The Clover machine sounds wonderful, but even now, two years after the book was written, they aren't in many stores, and that isn't explained in the book. Schultz describes using "lean" concepts in optimizing store operations, and that, along with the Clover story, shows great use of the "time and motion" school of optimization. He even describes how the stores went from bean grinding once a day to once a pot to better optimize the customer experience of the smell of the coffee shop. On reflection, Schultz comes across as Steve Jobs-anal, but not all that Steve Jobs-brilliant. The book does explain why Starbucks is Starbucks, and is worth reading for that.

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