Major Change Coming At Starbucks
I’m going to be one hundred percent honest with you here. I’m not a big coffee out guy. Not to sound so much like my dad, but have you seen the prices? For a cup of coffee? That being said, for some reason my parents LOVE to give Debbie and I gift cards to Starbucks. We cleaned out a drawer before we moved last year and found nearly $200 worth of free goods coming our way. So, we keep cards in the car and will stop in/drive thru from time to time. I like going in for a couple of reasons. One, I LOVE the smell of coffee brewing and it’s, of course, everywhere. And two, I get a kick out of standing to the side and watching a good barista do his/her thing.
To me, it’s like watching a good bartender. And the floor show is part of what you’re paying for, right? Well, if you’re like me, disappointment is coming. That is, unless you get a kick out of watching a machine operate. In a post-Covid, higher wage demand world, Starbucks is not the only company to be rethinking its business model. They are though, one of the biggest and first to tout and put on display their “reinvention strategy.” The new Siren System Cold Bar reduces the steps it takes to make drinks like a Frappuccino. FYI, cold drinks make up 70percent of the company’s revenue, so it only makes sense to streamline the process for efficiency. And that usually is code for eliminating the human element. According to The Sun, Starbucks chief technology officer Deb Hall Lefevre says, “We will never replace our baristas. Rather, our job is to automate the work and simplify it so that their job is easier.” Uh-oh. Anytime someone talks about making employees jobs easier, that’s code for not needing them. Funny how corporate execs never find machines that “make their jobs easier.”
