Starbucks Chairman & CEO Brian Niccol Talks Turnaround Plan
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome. This is The Michelle Hussein Show. I'm Michelle Hussein. I speak with people like Elon Musk. I think I've done enough. And Shonda Rhimes. That's so cute. This will be a place where every weekend you can count on one essential conversation to help make sense of the world. So please join me, listen and subscribe to The Michelle Hussein Show from Bloomberg Weekend, wherever you get your podcasts.
You certainly ask interesting questions.
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All right, Brian, congratulations on the recent quarter. Obviously, investors had been looking for some sort of sense that there would be a return to growth under your leadership in the 13 months that you've been on the job, 1% on the same store sales basis. Do you have confidence that the performance that you saw in your fiscal fourth quarter is not only going to be repeatable, but more importantly, something that you can build on for the current quarter and beyond?
Yeah, Romain, great to be here. And absolutely, we believe this was a critical moment in our turnaround plan of the Back to Starbucks strategy. You know, it was great to see once we got the Green Apron service standard into the business, we saw a lot of really good things happen. You know, most specifically, our partners were set up with bigger rosters, more hours, and they were able to give customers better connection. great craft products, which then translated into transaction increases. As you saw in September, we have positive comps driven by those transaction gains that continued into October. And we believe we can build from here because we've got a strong operational footing. and uh really excited about what we've got coming for holiday so uh we think it was a critical moment in the fourth quarter for the turnaround of the u.s business and when you think about north america the thing that's great is canada uh had a great quarter as well they were you know low mid single digit comp growth driven by transactions as well uh and they've done a really great job there and then when you look around the world uh we had terrific successes in many markets and most notably china had its second consecutive quarter of comp growth so uh
It was a critical moment for us, and we're optimistic about where we go from here.
You've put a lot of emphasis on service, obviously, with the Green Apron Project. What does that look like in terms of staffing, though? I mean, you obviously have to hire more people, but more importantly, you have to retrain a lot of your existing staff as well. How, I guess, receptive have they been to that, and have you faced any challenges?
You know, I got to give our partners a lot of credit. They really have embraced both the back to Starbucks strategy and the green apron service standard. And when I'm in stores, you know, what I hear from folks is like, thank you. We're getting back to being a great coffee house again. Our baristas and partners, they love doing the craft. They love having the moments of connection with our customers and our customers love it as well. And so the fact that we've staffed the stores up And we've added more people. We've added more hours. It actually has set them up to be able to do their job, I think, with excellence. And, you know, it's always terrific to be able to hire more people.
What is the 'Back to Starbucks' plan and how is it impacting sales?
And when you've got great leaders in the store, they're able to train the new people, I think, really quickly. And we've tried to keep this very focused on what we're looking for, right? We want a great greeting when people walk in. We want a great experience at the handoff. We're working on doing these uplifts so then our customers have great seats if they decide to stay. And we've put some technology in behind the scenes to help put order to all those orders coming in, whether it's through the drive-through, mobile order, or in the cafe. So, you know, we're seeing great responses from our partners, and I couldn't be prouder of the progress they've made in really short order. You know, we've only been doing this since the middle of August.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:14
2
What is the 'Back to Starbucks' plan and how is it impacting sales?
3:14–11:31
3
How is Starbucks focusing on improving customer service?
11:31–12:11
4
How is Starbucks managing staffing and retraining during the turnaround?
12:11–13:33
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from Bloomberg Talks
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