Starbucks in India - Serving Indian Flavors with Indian Design

Starbucks in India - Serving Indian Flavors with Indian Design

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Overview of Starbucks’ brand and analyze its brand rankings over the last few years
• Understand Starbucks’ brand building strategies in India and analyze its business approach
• Debate on Starbucks’ decision to localize menu and store design and analyze how would those factors affect its business prospects

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Starbucks: Building Brand and Building Business

1. What according to you is a Brand? What does a brand signify to you?
2. Refer Interbrand’s Best Global Brands1 2013 report and analyze the following:

• a) Based on the sector (Manufacturing, Service and Agriculture) composition of the 100 brands quoted in the report?
• b) Based on the geographic (the nationality of the brands/domicile status of brands) composition of the 100 brands quoted in the report?
• c) Based on the industry composition of the 100 brands quoted in the report?
• d) Based on geographic presence (operating locally or operating globally) of 100 brands quoted in the report?

3. ........................

4. ........................               

5. What is your analysis of Starbucks’ ranking in Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2013?

Exhibits

Exhibit I: Interbrand’s Year-wise Ranking of Starbucks

Exhibit II: Comparison between Prominent Coffee Outlets in India

Starbucks in India - Serving Indian Flavors with Indian Design

Synopsis

This case flyer enables a discussion about how Starbucks in India differentiated itself through its product and pricing strategies. In its products, Starbucks offered a variety of localized menu suitable to the gourmet of the Indian consumers’. Whereas in its pricing, Starbucks wanted to position itself as an aspirational brand consistent with the brand image it enjoys in Asia and other global markets. Also the locations chosen by Starbucks in India are mostly metro and cosmopolitan cities like – Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Gurgaon, etc.

Starbucks’ differentiated its products and services by blending the Indian culture and tastes, which may not be enough to arrive at its overall critical success factors. Even if the premium pricing justifies the overall brand’s aspirational appeal, would the products and pricing be enough to arrive at the suitable critical factors in a price sensitive and a ‘tea-drinking’ nation like India? How did some of the globally renowned brands maintain consistency in the positioning of their service or product? The base article holds that Starbucks is critically appraised in lines of the above mentioned questions by some of its close competitors. This case flyer is suitable to teach Service Product Differentiation and Positioning in the Marketing Management Course.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• • Overview of Starbucks’ brand and analyze its brand rankings over the last few years
• • Understand Starbucks’ brand building strategies in India and analyze its business approach
• • Debate on Starbucks’ decision to localize menu and store design and analyze how would those factors affect its business prospects

Positioning and Setting

This case flyer can be ideally used in the following course:

• a) Marketing Management Course: Service and Product Differentiation; and Positioning

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Exhibits

Exhibit (TN)-I: Interbrand’s Year-wise Ranking of Starbucks

Exhibit (TN)-II: Starbucks Prices