Schultz Transcript Clip 4
The Future of Starbucks
HOWARD SCHULTZ:
Well, the art, not the science, of being a great merchant, is to do everything you can to preserve the core experience and the core business while enhancing the experience that the customers have. That’s very hard to do.
I think the entertainment piece of the businesses is the following: is that if you are going to build a great retail company you can't embrace the status quo. You have to continue to innovate and push for reinvention and almost compete with yourself.
Two years ago Starbucks won eight Grammy awards, including Album of the Year. How could a coffee company do that? We produced a movie this year with Akeelah and the Bee. We just announced our second book, which is A Long Way Gone. We're in the book business now.
We think that we have an opportunity to leverage the 40 million customers a week--Starbucks is the most frequented retailer in the world now with the core customers coming in about 18 times a month, and we have an opportunity for discovery. As long as we do not abuse the reason that people come in--they don’t want Starbucks to try and sell them batteries or things that just don’t matter. We have to try and do everything we can to enhance the experience.
And I think that we have an asset also that we have not exploited, which is wi-fi. Starbucks has built out the largest wi-fi footprint of hotspots in the world now, almost 8,000. Within 12 months probably you're going to be able to walk into Starbucks and digitally be able to fill up your MP3 player with music. The wi-fi also can act as a channel and repurpose content or create content.
And, you know, I think we're in a very unique position where we probably have the best new channel distribution in America, and eventually around the world. The challenge is not to abuse that and to do everything we can to be very tasteful and sensitive, to only provide those things that the customer will say thank you for introducing this to me.
We also have an opportunity to introduce new artists, whether it's authors, music, filmmakers, because they have no way to sell their wares.
GARRICK UTLEY:
And you're an outlet now?
HOWARD SCHULTZ:
And we're an outlet. We're almost a network.