Better Latte than Never!
With over 31,000 stores in 82 markets, Starbucks welcomes over 100 million customer occasions each week. To be relevant at Starbucks, enterprise software vendors should align their solutions and messaging with these top 3 key initiatives for 2020:
- Enhance the in-store experience
- Deliver relevant beverage innovation
- Drive digital relationships
One of the key technologies to enable these initiatives is Artificial intelligence. Starbucks sees AI being applicable to virtually every aspect of their business – finance, legal, supply chain, marketing and inside their retail stores. A major company project called “Deep Brew” describes a suite of AI tools Starbucks is investing in to improve and personalize the customer experience. Deep Brew benefits will also streamline company operations on things like equipment maintenance, or improve processes like inventory, supply chain logistics and replenishment orders.
“We are working on technology that helps amplify the human connection…Everything we do with technology is centered around the customer connection in the store, the human connection, one person, one cup, one neighborhood at a time.”
– Gerri Martin-Flickinger, Starbucks Chief Technology Officer
Starbucks is wildly successful in digital, enabling over 1 BILLION digital customer occasions per year. Other strategic initiatives at Starbucks include rolling out home delivery, expanding across China, bringing connected devices and equipment into stores (IoT), and strengthening its Microsoft relationship by piloting Azure Sphere to gather data from machines and predict problems before they occur. AI investments will be an important element of Starbucks’ digital strategy and will help them grow stronger digital customer relationships.
Technology vendors looking to do business with Starbucks in 2020 should align their solutions with their efforts to bring convenience and engagement to employees and customers alike through AI and other technologies. Successful sales professionals will also demonstrate how your solution can help Starbucks engage with customers through its wildly successful mobile app or by improving the in-store experience. You can brew it!
