mately 15,000 employees in retail stores, regional offices and sales and real estate of the firm.
             2.0 Starbucks' Organization Structure:
             The firm has a matrix organizational structure, between the functional department and the product division. It has major functional departments such as marketing, supply chain, human resource, accounting, international planning, finance and communication. The product based division includes retail, specialty sales, wholesale group, direct response and international licensed concept unit.
             On the other hand, Starbucks Corporation concentrated on its human resource. It considered its workforce as an asset. They mainly hired young adults, who were given an extensive training at the in house training facility in brewing the right category of coffee. They were called as "baristas", who would serve the customers. After the completion of the required training program, they were inducted in the retail outlets. The employees were known as partners, rather than as employees. They were given salaries on par with the industry standards. To maintain employee loyalty, they were given stock options in the company and were motivated with various forms of financial and non-financial incentives. Starbucks had the least employee turnover in the industry.
             Coffee consumption in America has been stable, while specialty coffee has increased its market share to 30% in 1999, up from 17% in 1988. There has been a steady increase in the espresso coffee bars through out USA.
             Raw material procurement by Starbucks is done by searching for the finest quality coffee beans. Starbucks collaborated with a mill in a tiny town of Pasto to procure the world's finest Narino supreme bean coffee. Starbucks coffee roasters use variety of traditional and scientific methods to identify the finest quality of coffee beans. The roasters are trained and promoted from the company and are extensively t...