COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Brand name: Starbucks is an iconic emotional brand.

Emotional brands become meaningful in part because they become interwove with the narratives of peoples lives. Starbucks create their brand name with offer good environment of stores which is captured by four themes such as Starbucks as Home; Starbucks as a Constellation of Personal Spaces; Starbucks as Exotic; and Starbucks as a Bridge between Cultures. Quality of product: Starbucks establish their own Total Quality Management System in order to provide and control the quality of product that they sell to the customer. They also have corporate headquarters that exercises controls over individual sites. Other than that, they also have internal controls for the store. Good supplier relationship: The company has retained its leadership through numerous alliances particularly in the development of new products and sale of its coffee. Strong financials: According to the S&P, Starbucks is a valuable financial resource with a fast growing and a relatively low risk company for investors to invest in. Starbucks is taking advantage of this resource by obtaining both short and long-term capital to finance its rapid expansion both domestically. Strong human resources: The most important skills in Starbucks is people skills and drink preparation ability. In order to maintain and control the quality that product that they produce, all the employees will give training to learn about products, brewing methods and sales techniques. Customer Service: It focuses on the need to ensure the customer experience' of visiting a Starbucks store is all the more enjoyable due to the friendliness and efficiency of staff and consistently high quality product on Tie-ups: Partnerships with companies such as Nordstrom and Barnes & Noble allow Starbucks to set up shop in arenas suitable to the Starbucks experience. A joint venture with Pepsi has produced successful sales of Frappucino within supermarkets.

IN INDIA:Competitive Price: Starbucks follows low pricing strategy across all its forthcoming outlets, including the next one at the premium Taj Hotel. Starbucks is staying true to its brand promise of delivering a premium service, by taking the middle road in pricing. For instance, a small coffee selling for 85 rupees ( $1.57) while more expensive than their biggest rival, Caf Coffee Day,it is cheaper than foreign-owned, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. By locally sourcing its coffee, Starbucks price point has been reduced by approximately 33% to suit Indias price-sensitive market. This is Starbucks competitive advantage for India. India has a huge young population. Starbucks is targeting this market, specifically the working professionals who eagerly look for private space outside of their homes to network or simply, meet with friends. By creating the most elegant store ever designed according to the CEO, Starbucks plans to capture this age bracket that will want to come to Starbucks Tata: the third most popular place after home and work.

STRATEGIC GROUP The industry structure in India for retail coffee stores is bit different. Caf coffee day and Barista have their stores open in the public areas where the masses as well as the elites have the access. So in terms of accessibility of the stores the current Indian industry structure differs from that of Starbucks. Some of the current big players in the current Indian Coffee Industry and their strategies are shown below: Caf coffee day (CCD): Caf coffee day is Indias largest coffee retail chain. It has network strength of more than thousand coffee stores across 120 cities in India. Major chunk of CCD customers falls within the age group of 20 to 30 which accounts for 57% of the overall percentage. The group comprises of mainly college going students and young working professionals. Cafe Coffee Days also targeted other locations like corporate houses, airport, hospitals and shopping malls. Cafe Coffee Day priced its products 20% lower than its competitors. Coffee Bean Supplier: Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd. Cafe Coffee Days also targeted other locations like corporate houses, airport, hospitals and shopping malls. Cafe Coffee Day priced its products 20% lower than its competitors.

Tie-Ups: 1. Himalaya with CCD To drive usage of honey, Himalaya Drugs is developing daily diet products and looking at marketing them by tying-up with leading consumer brands. It has tied up with Caf Coffee Day, to create four dishes; Honey Cappuccino, Honey milk shake, Rich Chocolate Cake and ice cream topped with honey and nuts. The Cafe Coffee Day partnership is unique. 2. Levis: CCD has also tied-up with Levis where CCD will promote Levis product in their cafes. Levis recently launched their latest range of apparel, Levis 501, through CCD as part of their annual laterals like Wall visuals, Tent cards, Posters and Door stickers. There is also a special Levis Drink. 3. Corporate connections: Recently MOU with Essar Oil, to have Kiosks as its pumps

CSR initiatives Their biggest CSR initiative is the SVGH Vocational Training College which was established in April 2005 in Chikmaglur, Karnataka. It has the aim of bridging the gap between the urban

and the rural youth by giving opportunities for the economically underprivileged ones for learning, training and ensuring them due placements.

Barista Lavazza: Barista Lavazza is currently owned by Lavazza, Italys largest coffee company. Coffee is supplied by the Indian roaster Fresh and Honest, headquartered in Chennai. The latter is also owned by Lavazza. Tie-Ups: 1. Lacoste with Barista: Lacoste India has decided to tie-up with coffee outlet chain Barista in all the major metros and some mini-metros. The strategy is to target younger audiences, which have a penchant for the "finer things in life". The customer segment of Barista is very different from the ones who visit a regular coffee shop. 2. Elle-18: Barista is jointly tied up with Elle 18 to promote their product. Elle-18 is launching a collection of coffee colored lipsticks and has named it after Baristas beverages! Therefore, they are working with Elle 18, which is a youthful brand.

CSR initiatives Taking its 'Use Mobile, Save Paper' campaign further, Idea Cellular8 has partnered with the two coffee chains to make it possible to eliminate the use of paper in transactions. Through a unique mobile software application, which has been made available at CCD and Barista outlets, people can download the menu card and bill on their mobile phones, thereby eliminating the need to use paper for these purposes. Costa Coffee Costa coffee is a UK-based coffee retailer, which entered India in 2005 through the Jaipuria Group as its master franchisee. CSR initiatives It has given employment opportunities to many hearing impaired employees as its latest initiative