“The shine is back,” Niccol crowed on Thursday in Manhattan at his first Starbucks investor day. While even he admits it’s too early to cry victory, he does deserve credit for getting this challenging turnaround off the ground. He did so by offering the troops, from your local barista to his C-suite, something whose absence has sunk comeback attempts by other CEOs: clarity of mission and simplicity.
Niccol has dubbed his turnaround “Back to Starbucks.” That means going back to what made Starbucks popular in the first place. People like being able to actually sit down and enjoy their coffee? Let’s jettison the seat-free Starbucks locations that existed solely for mobile order pickup. (The company is adding 25,000 seats to its company-operated U.S. stores.)
How about store design? When it came to creating new store layouts, Starbucks now designs with store workers and not just for them. Starbucks now tests new ideas in five stores in real operating conditions. (We’ve all been at a chaotic Starbucks watching employees bump into each other because HQ gave them an unworkable layout.)
Another example: under Niccol, each store is graded on the five most important criteria, a fraction of the metrics used before: customer experience, performance during peak hours, employee scheduling, product availability, and health and safety.
