The CEO of Starbucks has revealed what he's found out and how he intends to improve things after working as a barista in their stores.
Yep, you heard that right. Following his appointment as the CEO of the coffee giant back in March, Laxman Narasimhan has turned his hand to the shop floor and worked as a barista on more than one occasion.
This is certainly a rare occurrence from CEO's of big companies, with them often seeming quite disconnected from the rest of the company as they get along with CEO things.
Prior to his appointment full-time, Narasimhan served as interim CEO before Howard Schultz left the company.
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To acclimatise with Starbucks, Narasimhan took on the barista role, which led to him being awarded a barista certification - an award obtained by undertaking 40 hours of training in stores.
You'd think after he became permanent CEO of the company, Narasimhan would have stopped his store hopping and gone into the boardroom.
You couldn't have been more wrong though, as Narasimhan pledged to continue visiting Starbucks stores and working as a barista every month.
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"To keep us close to the culture and our customers, as well as to our challenges and opportunities, I intend to continue working in stores for a half day each month," he wrote in a letter addressed to Starbucks employees in March.
Now, after much experience as a barista, Narasimhan has shared some of his key takeaways.
In a recent call with analysts, as per Insider, Narasimhan said that, in his opinion, the company needs to buy cheaper cups while also slashing the number of lid-and-cup combinations.
The CEO had praise for the variations of drinks in store, but said 'food could use more work'.
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"Currently, we have over 1,500 cup and lid combinations across our network," Narasimhan said in the call.
"As we streamline, we will create a portfolio of fewer, more sustainable and less costly cups while further simplifying operations in our stores."
Narasimhan added that improvements needed to be made to the factories - the area of the business that involves supply chain and all the non-customer-facing operations.
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"We are in the business of human connection," he said.
"Our performance is strong, but our health can be stronger, enable the fearless in the front by strengthening the factories in the back."
Narasimhan then touched on how Starbucks can buy differently in the future and how the company will strive to be 'different'.
"We can buy different, and we can buy better," he added.
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"Our end-to-end supply chain has significant opportunities to reduce cost and improve availability."
"We are a company that strives to be different, and we are now operating in a different kind of world."
Topics: Starbucks, Food and Drink
Callum Jones