A Soy Latte Story
Andy Adams, Vice President of Store Development for Starbucks Asia Pacific, talks homogeny, design and sustainability with Ashford Pritchard.
Bouncing into the store with a zeal that only a caffeine high can give you, Andy Adams’ enthusiasm for all things Starbucks is apparent as he takes me on a tour of the coffee conglomerate’s latest Hong Kong branch on Central’s Duddell Street, which was a collaborative effort with local design doyens G.O.D. First things first, the most obvious and important question of the day must be asked: what is his favourite morning pick-me-up? “Double tall soy latte,” he reveals, “You get the feeling that the soy is good for you, the double because I need the extra espresso in the morning, and the tall so that even if the soy isn’t good for you, it doesn’t have too much sugar.” Serious business over with, Adams describes the path he took to his current role, where he overseas store design and development for the Seattle-based food and beverage empire across 10 regions which comprise most of Asia Pacific, excluding China and India.
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| Andy Adams enjoys his favourite blend |
It was while working for a real estate development company in Canada that he first came into contact with Starbucks. “We were doing site selection for retailers as well as ground-up retail development. Starbucks was one of our clients,” he explains. Five years ago he made the leap, and started looking after real estate for the Eastern Canada region, before stepping up to store development for all of Canada and then, just over a year ago, came out to Asia Pacific.
Counting beans
Japan was Starbucks’ first market outside of North America, and when its first store was launched in Tokyo it was considered a huge risk. After all, the Japanese didn’t even have neighbourhood coffee stores. Yet, thirteen years later the group has nearly 1000 stores in Japan, and it is still one of the fastest growing regions under Adams’ portfolio. Its success comes down to the same thing that underpins the brand’s rise in Asia, finding the right partners.
“Our biggest challenge is that in North America, the majority of our businesses are company owned [where Starbucks both owns and operates its stores] but in Asia Pacific we have a mix of joint-venture partnerships, licensed arrangements and then company owned businesses,” says Adams. This means that the company is managing into another business, either as a partner or licensor. “In Asia Pacific, I’d say essentially our success, and the reason we’re close to 2000 stores today is primarily because we have strong partners and because of our ability to execute the Starbucks concept, designs and operations standards across the region.”
Ubiquity
Using terms like “store growth velocity”, Adams forecasts another 120 Starbucks stores in Asia Pacific this year. Critics of the coffee chain, who claim its ubiquity is on a par with McDonalds, being on every corner in every major city, often point to the cookie-cutter design and realisation of the stores. Adams respectfully disagrees, saying “There’s been a lot of talk about the homogeny of Starbucks, and the fast pace of growth. It’s not cookie-cutter, it is no different to an artist using a palette, you have a number of colours you can use. It is how you blend them, and apply them to a canvas that creates a unique picture. Starbucks is the same.”
First of all, the design team starts off with two core concepts: coffee and the customer. The next step is to conceptualise what people are looking for from the environment: is it an office environment? Is it a shopping mall or even an airport? “We build a set of palettes, colours, options and design concepts that can be used in a variety of circumstances, but also vary, so that they speak to the local environment,” Adams says. So a Hong Kong outlet may have artwork that reflects the history of the locale. One store in Kobe, Japan occupies a renovated house, thus the design mimics a living room. Consistency is achieved, he says, “because we are using the same set of tools that all the designers have, but are applying it so that it’s relevant to the customer and the location.”
New direction
Over the past 18 months or so, Starbucks has been looking at refreshing their design approach. “We’ve got a new set of design concepts that we’re testing now in the US and Europe. It is two things: a design review and a design renewal, so something very different from what we’ve done over the past ten years.” A big part of this revitalisation is an organisational push for sustainability, which comes under the remit of the company’s “Shared Planet” initiative. Adams says that community engagement has been central to the Starbucks ethos since the company was founded over 30 years ago, but conceded that “we haven’t always communicated that externally as well as we should be.”
The built environment plays an important part in “Shared Planet”, and store design will be particularly vital. “Our store designs fit into Shared Planet because we are looking at sustainable business practices and green building,” says Adams. “By the end of 2010 these new concepts that we’re bringing will be in place, we’ll have sourced them at and from markets around the world, and every store will be LEED certified. Each store will have a different rating, but we are working with LEED to make sure that each location can be covered.”
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| Starbucks Asia-Pacific team collaborates with local designers on stores across the region. This South Korean store features a special touch-screen table, allowing customers to order their drinks without leaving their seats |
The design concepts being explored include “heritage”, “artisan” and “mercantile”, which facilitate Starbucks’ goal of using recycled materials and refurbished furniture. It’s a novel marriage of design and sustainability, one that fits the brand handsomely in the pilot projects in Paris and Seattle, and will no doubt do the same in Asia Pacific once it reaches these shores. Much like the Starbucks brand itself, the store designs are disarmingly comfortable, be it in Singapore or Stockholm. As Adams finishes his latte he outlines the secret to global domination:
“It comes back to real estate being local, you need to understand who the customer is, it doesn’t matter if it’s an office project or an industrial site, you need to take those same principles and apply it to a 200 sqm coffee house.” These clinical, methodical methods may seem at odds with the homely image of Starbucks, but delivered with such friendliness, one can’t help be seduced. Then again, it could just have been the warmth and charm conjured by the coffee’s soothing aroma.