He is a people-oriented leader who personally coaches his employees and is very open towards them. Upon taking the post, Schultz invited people to email him directly -- and soon received 5,000 emails. He also made personal phone calls to stores across the nation to see how things were going.
Schultz embraces change and reacts to external forcesof change. In view of technology advancements, he appointed a chief technology officer, Chris Bruzzo from Amazon.com to update Starbucks' website and improved its overall social media presence. Under Schultz's directive, the company also replaced all of its outdated cash registers and computers. The company estimates the new system is saving 700,000 wait-in-line hours. In response to external competition, Schultz studied other corporate turnarounds in order to pull off his own. Also for the first time ever, Starbucks invested in a major national advertising campaign, in response to changing market forces.
He also made use of internal forces of change, in the form of reinvention and reengineering. For the first time in company history, Schultz looked to outside consultants for ideas on how to revive the company. In 2008, Schultz also completely reorganized supply chain operations -- getting products to stores more efficiently and improving inventory. As a result, 9 out of 10 orders were delivered perfectly to stores, up from 3 out of 10 before. Finally, heeding advice that losing customers in a down economy is much more expensive than investing in them, Schultz created a customer rewards card to keep customers loyal. All these internal changes made greatly helped Starbucks to keep afloat back then, and going on to make it successful.
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