Onward, the Story of Starbucks & Howard Schultz - BCF #38

eldergill (52)in #bookclub • 6 years ago (edited)

About the Author

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 19, 1953, Howard Schultz graduated from Northern Michigan University with a bachelor's degree in communications before becoming director of retail operations and marketing for the Starbucks Coffee Company in 1982. After founding the coffee company Il Giornale in 1987, he purchased Starbucks and became CEO and chairman of the company. In 2000, Schultz publicly announced that he was resigning as Starbucks's CEO. Eight years later, however, he returned to head the company. In 2014, Starbucks had more than 21,000 stores worldwide and a market cap of $60 billion.

In early June 2018, Howard Schultz announced that he would be stepping down as chairman of Starbucks at the end of the month. At the time, the chain had grown to include more than 28,000 stores in 77 countries.

(https://www.biography.com/people/howard-schultz-21166227)

A little bit about the book!

Onward is a book about the rise, slight fall and eventual resurgence of Starbucks as a brand and a business. It focusses a lot on the CEO, and author Howard Schultz' management style as well as business practices which proves to be really interesting! It talks about Schultz's daily decision-making process, from closed-door planning sessions in Seattle to conversations with coffee farmers in Rwanda, to investors presentations in New York amid all the turmoil in 2008.

What I loved about the book was its ease of reading style. It is very easy to follow and is genuinely full of great practices and ideas. However, due to it being written by the CEO itself, it is likely that a lot of the information has been dramatized in some way, or there are some things that wouldn't be so smooth-running like it is portrayed at times in the book. I got the feeling that when Schultz was in charge of the company, all was well. But when someone else was in charge, all hell broke loose. Which on the face of things is true, but of course, nothing exactly works like this.

Conversely, I believe it is very important to know what goes on inside a CEO has, especially one that is the founder and leader of one of the biggest companies in the consumers market in the United States. He created a world renown brand in Starbucks after all.

I would recommend the book to anyone who even has the slightest interest in startups, business or even just coffee in general. It reads like a gripping novel and is a book worthy of anyone's bookshelf.

Be exceptional

Adam x