In January 2008, eight years after quitting as the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz again took over from Jim Donald as the CEO of Starbucks. It was a challenge for Schultz to turnaround an ailing company which he had earlier run as a profitable coffee retail giant. The main focus of Schultz was to improve Starbucks' sales in the US by providing higher customer satisfaction, slowing down the pace of opening new outlets, streamlining management and accelerating expansion. It was felt though that resuming the role of CEO may not solve the underlying problems at Starbucks. The pedagogical objectives are: (1) to understand the role of leadership in the success of a company; (2) to understand the challenges in replacing a successful CEO; and (3) to understand the role of a CEO in the performance of a company
Notes
Case study reference no.: HRM0040B
Title from resource description page (viewed May 26, 2015)
