Starbucks - A socially responsible company
I was sent this email below, tying in with a previous post. This caused me to think.
I went to college and graduate school in a radical Jesuit College (Ateneo De Manila University) in the Philippines while it was under the oppressive Marcos dictatorship. I understand the issues regarding large (multinational) corporations very well. I was schooled in liberation theology. I have seen poverty that makes the Robles Park project look like a palace. I have seen greed and corruption. I have seen both sides of the political coin. President Marcos' daughter went to my school. The son of his leading political opponent (Ninoy Aquino, who was later assassinated) went to my school. I had classmates who had relatives who had to flee to the US to avoid persecution or death. My economics professor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was the daughter of a former Philippine President. She is now the current President of the Phillipines (and is facing a coup attempt due to rigged election and corruption concerns). I was there when the demonstrations started against Marcos. As a consequence, I understand protest very well.
I have also seen fashionable protest, protest on an issue just because it is the thing to do, because someone's peer group it doing it.
Is this the case of some of the Starbucks objectors? (Not the ones who had legitimate issues with the architechure/zoning) The ones who would consider Starbucks to be the Devil. Are they non-thinking protestors?
Here is the email:
Found this on the cnn.money site. Far be it from me to stir up the Starbucks hornets
nest again, but after of the bashing it has received, especially by those who consider it corporately irresponsible, I thought this might be of interest. An excerpt:
NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - What's a socially responsible company? It
is a company that serves. It serves its customers by selling something of value,
its workers by providing good jobs, its owners by generating profits and all of
us by making the world a better place.
Starbucks. A pioneer in the area of corporate responsibility, Starbucks (Research) broke the mold in the fast-food industry by offering health-care benefits and stock (called "bean stock") even to part-time workers. It is now forging partnerships with coffee growers around the world that are designed to give growers a fair price for
their beans -- often higher than the so-called Fair Trade price -- and to
promote sound environmental practices. Starbucks also seeks to become more
"green" at the retail level by, for instance, offering a 10-cent discount to
customers who bring their own cups.
"They are innovative, distinctive, commendable and unfortunately not copied by many other companies," says David Vogel, who teaches at Berkeley's Haas School of Business and is the author of The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility. Seattle-based Starbucks generated $6.4 billion in revenues last year.
Pretty positive stuff for that company that was compared to Hannibal Lechter by one of the posters to the Starbucks message chain.
Related:
Magic Johnson and Starbucks
All of my Starbucks posts
7 comments:
They may be a more "responsible" corporation than others, and can be considered a "model" by business leaders, but that doesn't mean that communities should bend over backward and hail their arrival as some kind of coronation. I still wonder if someone had found some "good press" about Krystal burger would everyone be falling over themselves to welcome them to the neighborhood. I sincerely wonder how this will effect the local, independent drive through coffee shop, Indigo, and who will be applauding their arrival then? Or does a status symbol of yuppie-dom trump the failure of another local business? Will there be excuses, arguments of laws of economics, business models, and location?
Indigo coffee has at least 7 locations here in Tampa. At some point it stops being "independent" and becomes a locally-headquartered corporation. Starbucks started by selling coffee from a pushcart in Seattle.
While it may be reasonable to recommend supporting Indigo because it is local, I don't think being "local" makes it any less "yuppie" than Starbucks. A $4 mocha latte is "yuppie" no matter who sells it.
(Does anyone know if Indigo is a franchise? Google couldn't cough up much more than addresses.)
As for the effect, that depends on a great many factors. But both of these stores are similar in quite a few ways:
1) they both located where they are to gain access to a freeway offramp. Indigo at MLK and Starbucks at Hillsborough.
2) they both rely on drive-thru traffic (Indigo is drive-thru only.)
3) they both sell yuppie coffee for premium prices
Would someone who currently exits on MLK change to Hillsborough each morning to gain access to the Starbucks brand over Indigo? Unlikely. Both intersections are part of a nasty commute which will discourage route change for something so minor. Only people who crave one brand over the other and who's commute won't be affected by the change will do so.
Since Indigo is drive-thru only, it doesn't get customers looking to consume on site. That set of customers was never theirs from the start.
The only real competition between them will be during non-commute hours for people looking for high-end take-away coffee/tea.
I wonder why Indigo didn't open a place in Seminole Heights? Anyone heard anything on that score?
I have heard that Indigo is actually owned by Joffrey's. Has anyone else heard this?
I'd love to know how forcing a corporation to do more than any other business in Seminole Heights can be interpreted as "bending over". I've heard this story more than once and it's always from someone who didn't participate in the process. Starbucks themselves bent over backwards to accomodate us, coming up with a Med Revival design that has, in my opinion, too many decorative elements in it to look authentic. They added those (at extra expense) for fear of being turned down.
I suspect that a lot of this is driven by supporters of a local business owner who feels that we, as a neighborhood, don't support them.
If anything, I feel the big corporations, like Publix and Starbucks, are the ones that will bend over backward to serve the neighborhood, a concept some local business owners would be well served to copy.
This feud has been going on for some time now between Randy & Patrick. It's not been entirely about food and service, but an alpha male pissing contest.
Boys, please confine your grudge match to the back alley, where it belongs, and keep the rest of us blissfully out-of-the-loop!
While it's easy to dismiss Randy's valid complaints as just a guy thing (aint that sexist?), as someone who was there for both the wing and chili events, I can tell you it really is about the food and service.
The food can be very dissapointing. When you complain and the waiter agrees with you, that's pretty bad. When you complain and the business owner verbally assaults you in front of customers for it, that's just terrible.
Myself and a group of friends went there one Sunday morning. Busy day. There was one food server, one cook, and one young girl running amok (Pat's daughter). Pat was upstairs asleep. The food server was bussing tables, taking orders, running the register, and delivering food to over 10 tables (ours had at least 6 people) all while babysitting Pat's daughter. She quit on the spot.
He treats his customers badly and his employees worse.
I do have to admit as a business owner, I can understand the frustrations of opening a business and hoping that it thrives. I too have been to the front porch grill, because I believe that we should support our local businesses. I have to agree with Randy, that the Front Porch has the potential to be GREAT, but always comes short. I have been at Front Porch at times, where there was only 1 other table. My husband and I waited 30 minutes for a sandwich. And, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that fries are off the menu now because they are too expensive? I worked in food and beverage for years and you have to listen to what the customers want, or your business will inevitably fail. What do Front Porch customers want? Consistent service and food that tastes good. Professional servers would help. I often think that the servers can only do so much when they are doing the work of 4 servers. And training the wait staff would help as well. Just my two cents...
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