Starbucks EMEA

Objective:

Around 2010, Starbucks Coffee transitioned from operating as a US company with an international department to a global 3 region operating model - Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific. When these businesses were reorganized, it became very clear that the Asia Pacific region had been fueling most of the profitability of the historic international business, while the EMEA region was unprofitable due to high rents, high labor costs and under-optimized business structures, although enjoying some of the highest store sales volumes globally. Doug was promoted to be the SVP of EMEA Business Development & LS Retail Operations in 2012 with the objective to drive innovation and get to profitable growth while reducing costs.

Results:

Upon relocating to Amsterdam in Jan 2012, Doug led the SBUX partnerships and business in +35 countries ($1.5B P&L). He started with introducing the same multi-channel development strategy that was a game changer in the US and tailored it for each region across EMEA. The retail store strategy shifted from driving the opening of many company-operated stores to partnering with more local/ regional operating partners and increasing license store openings as well as launching traditional franchising in the UK and France. The teams launched new countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Monaco, South Africa); pushed high growth in the most profitable regions (Middle East, Turkey, Russia); and initiated turnaround plans for the lower performing markets (UK, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Poland). Innovation was seen through the roll out of a new “origin espresso” program and the new Clover Brewing system as well as delivering the 1st SBUX on a train and the 1st SBUX self-serve vending programs.

To gain efficiencies and cost savings, the teams reduced local food offerings from country to country down to 20% while restoring the core food offering back up to 80% yielding increased sales and reduced costs. Some regional offices were shut down as well as a consolidation of the Amsterdam HQ into the London HQ reducing EMEA corporate overhead. Overall actions resulted in +10% revenue growth with 2 years of profit while becoming the only global business unit to deliver 7 consecutive quarters of sales and margin growth over prior year quarters.