by winston » Fri Aug 14, 2015 5:29 pm
The Starbucks Fix By Mark Ford
When Howard Schultz came back to run Starbucks after an eight-year hiatus, the company was spiraling out of control.
It was 2008, and Starbucks was offering sandwiches that interfered with the aroma of coffee, sodas that competed with its primary products, and books and CDs that distracted visitors.
Profits were sinking, and the stock price had plummeted.
“[We were chasing] after too many new ideas that took us away from our core business,” Schultz explained to Harvard Business Review.
He went to work, simplifying the company’s mission statement and trimming its product line.
“We pulled the plug on lots of things and focused on the ones that were most important.”
Within two years, Starbucks was back on top. Today, its annual revenue is more than $10 billion.
I was a Starbucks customer during those years, and I don’t believe all of those products were bad ideas.
I was a Starbucks customer during those years, and I don’t believe all of those products were bad ideas. The CD racks, I thought, were stretching it too far. But several of the food and beverage items were good.
The problem: There was just too much going on in those stores. As a customer, you could feel it. It’s not surprising to me that it had a negative effect on the company’s growth.
There’s an important lesson here: When you have too many ideas and you don’t know how to prioritize them, you risk spreading yourself—and your money—too thin. As a result, you are likely to make costly mistakes.
Source: The Palm Beach Letter
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"