Starbucks' secret weapon

The headquarters of Starbucks in Seattle is the shrine of coffee, fenced with mild dark brown wood, surrounded by decorative trees covered with coffee fruits and buckets of coffee beans. But one floor is different, two flights of stairs up to the office where Michell Gass reformed Seattle's Seattle's Best Coffee, with bold red and orange hues, silver ribbons hanging from the rafters and scattered party hats from the weekly coffee tasting.

"We take our coffee very seriously and we love it." Gus, 43, says she has been working at Starbucks for 15 years. Besides coffee, Gus also likes to mess things up and reorganize them. In 1996, with the huge success of Frappuccino, which now has annual sales of $2 billion, Gus took Starbucks in a new direction. After Howard Schultz (Howard Schultz) returned to Starbucks CEO in 2008, Gus helped him preside over major changes in the company. In 2009, with the launch of VIA Coffee, Gus led Starbucks to success in the chaotic market of instant coffee. Now she will go to the new battlefield to take care of Starbucks' business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In early 2008, Starbucks experienced a free-fall in sales, partly because of market saturation and economic weakness, but also because of fierce competition from McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Schultz's first organizational reform was to promote Gus, then the youngest member of Starbucks' male-dominated executive, to be the company's chief strategy officer. "Michelle is a courageous leader with a rare mix of business management and interpersonal skills." "she was the perfect person to help me when we changed the company," Schultz said. "

We can see Gus in the process of readjusting the way Starbucks operates its business and retraining and mobilizing 137000 employees in 17000 stores. "I like big challenges." "it's a very unique character that can have a huge impact," she said excitedly. " Gus and Schultz jointly developed a "reform plan" with seven major actions. They closed 900 stores worldwide, cut costs by nearly $600 million, and closed all stores for three hours to train coffee dispensers to improve the quality of coffee.

At the same time, Schultz turned to instant coffee recipes that had been abandoned in the laboratory for years because of a thirst for new sources of income. He hopes to launch the relevant products as soon as possible and leave the matter to Gus. "I feel a lot of pressure to do all aspects of things well." Even though "some of us inside us are saying, 'this is crazy,'" Gus said. You will devalue the Starbucks brand, "but she looked carefully at the market research report. After that, Gus concluded that Starbucks would have to wait, so she and another colleague reported to Schultz, "it's too early, we need to conduct market testing." Schultz agreed, saying, "Michelle has a tough stance, but that's the quality I want to find in a leader." During the trial sale, Gus discovered a very important problem: the term "instant coffee" deterred consumers, and she decided to call VIA "unbrewed coffee." Later, at a whiteboard meeting, someone came up with a challenge: put newly brewed Starbucks coffee with VIA instant coffee to see if customers could taste the difference. "now, that's a great idea." Gus leaned over and said.

"that's very bold." Chris Bruzo (Chris Bruzzo) recalls that he was the senior vice president of Seattle Best Coffee. "it makes people nervous, but it shows people like Michelle the opportunity and leads the company to win back the trust of its customers." Just ten months after the launch of VIA coffee in the United States, sales reached 100 million dollars.

When all the preparations for the launch of VIA Coffee were in place at the end of 2009, and Starbucks' profits finally began to rise, Schultz called Gus to the office and asked, "what do you think of Seattle Best Coffee?" The brand is as old as Starbucks, but was quickly forgotten after it was acquired by Starbucks in 2003. "I hope you can transform it into a business unit with annual sales of $1 billion, and you have full control over everything."

Gus didn't flinch. "I was fascinated by the proposal," she said. "there were no rules, it was an early-stage affiliated brand, and I had the opportunity to create everything." In a dark, windowless conference room, Gus spent weeks brainstorming with the team. "when she takes on a new challenge," says Bruzo, "she will focus on it like this, and she will make a quick and in-depth assessment and look for opportunities. And then, bang! You can see a steady stream of results. "

Gus decided to deviate from Starbucks' traditional target audience and move to a new low-end market. "Starbucks offers a rich, hierarchical and exotic coffee experience." For Seattle Best Coffee, what I was thinking was, how do you make it simple? " With the idea of "providing quality coffee to everyone", Gus has partnered with Burger King, Delta, Subway, convenience stores and supermarkets to expand Best Coffee outlets from 3000 to 50000 in just one year. She cut the best bagged coffee line by 40%, focused on five flavors and packaged in traditional brown and bright cyan, red and orange. "as a small brand, you have to be destructive." She said.

Seattle Best Coffee has not yet reached $1 billion in annual sales, but Gus insists that will come true. It wasn't easy, Gus said. "I spent a lot of sleepless nights." Before her vision came true, many Starbucks employees were wondering whether Schultz's sending her to a department where her parents didn't love her was a demotion. These words come from Jack Anderson, a founding partner of brand design firm Hornall Anderson, who worked with Gus when promoting VIA coffee. Now, Anderson says, everyone wants to be involved. "she's Starbucks' biggest trump card," Anderson said. "

Gus, who grew up in Lewiston, Maine, earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Worcester Institute of Technology (WPI) in Massachusetts before moving on to work in product research at Procter & Gamble (PG). Gus spent six years in Procter & Gamble's Cincinnati office, where his job was to spot market trends and introduce new flavors of toothpaste. Later, her husband got a business opportunity on the West Coast, so they moved to Seattle.

Shortly after arriving in Seattle, Gus was hired by Starbucks as the brand marketing manager of Frappuccino, with a team of only three people. The sweet cream drink was launched the year before, when no development strategy had been decided, and Gus told team members, "Let's think about how big the market can be." She spent countless days talking to customers in the store and learned that the product was seen as an afternoon casual drink. Gus decided to add dome caps, whipped cream, sugar paddles and green straws to the Frappuccino and introduce new flavors, such as the most popular caramel Frappuccino. When people said the reforms were too difficult and pushed back 04:00, Gus stood his ground. In the end, the fringe product, which used to have only two flavors, became a brand with annual sales of $2 billion, with thousands of possible flavor combinations. "to create a sustainable product, you need to focus on detail." "as an engineer, I speak with facts and data, but what really matters is insight into the inside of the product," she said. "

In June 2011, after less than two years at Best Coffee in Seattle, Gus was called to the office by Schultz, who decided to divide Starbucks' overseas operations into three regions: the Americas, Asia Pacific and EMEA (that is, Europe, Middle East and Africa). He decided to put Gus in charge of the EMEA region, which includes 33 countries in 20 languages and 10 currencies. "Wow," said Gus, who froze. However, Gus accepted the appointment and quickly moved his family to London. Her husband is now in charge of looking after two children, aged 8 and 12.

Gus, who officially became president of Starbucks EMEA in October, said the region's market was "full of possibilities." At present, Starbucks' overseas revenue accounts for only 1/4 of its total revenue of $10.7 billion, and Schultz hopes that this revenue will eventually double-- and surely Gus: she will carry a cup of American caffeine, looking for the next great idea.