Schultz java jolt for Starbucks

The answer does not lie in data, but in the stores. — Ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz posted a lengthy essay on LinkedIn urging the coffee chain to overhaul its US operations in the wake of the company’s disappointing quarterly earnings.

Schultz, who left Starbuck’s board last fall after he became the public face of the company’s resistance to employee unionization drives, wrote Sunday that it must regain “a maniacal focus on the customer experience, through the eyes of a merchant. The answer does not lie in data, but in the stores.”

Schultz, 70, said that lagging US sales, which sent Starbucks shares tumbling 16% during a single trading session last week, were “the primary reason for the company’s fall from grace.” The stock is down 24% this year.

In his LinkedIn post, Schultz encouraged executives and board members to “spend more time with those who wear the green apron.”

“One of their first actions should be to reinvent the mobile ordering and payment platform — which Starbucks pioneered — to once again make it the uplifting experience it was designed to be,” Schultz wrote.

Left board in Sept.

Schultz, who remains one of the company’s largest shareholders, stepped down from the board in September, six months after handing over the reins of the firm to CEO Laxman Narasimhan.

The Brooklyn native, who bought Starbucks when it was just a local Seattle coffee bean store and turned it into a chain of European-style coffeehouses, urged the company to redo its “go-tomarket strategy” by focusing on “coffee-forward innovation that inspires partners. Through it all, focus on being experiential, not transactional.”

Narasimhan was grilled last week by CNBC analyst Jim Cramer during a tense interview.

“Is it possible that your coffee is just too darn expensive?” Cramer asked.

Narasimhan responded that the “occasional US customer” has “clearly cut back on visits to us” due to sky-high levels of inflation.

“We have not been able to communicate to them the value that we provide,” the CEO said.

Narasimhan pledged to put in place an “action plan” to “reach [customers] and communicate to them the value that we are providing.”