OPINION22 February 2010
Sometimes it is a little difficult to answer the question, show me where research has paid off!
Sometimes it is a little difficult to answer the question, show me where research has paid off! Where is the return? No doubt part of this is down to the fact that research is part of the discussion and like advertising it becomes difficult to disaggregate a direct effect. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the first quarter 2010 results from Starbucks state the impact of ‘getting closer to the customer’.
Inthe First Quarter of 2010, net income was $241.5 million, up from $64.3 million in the year-ago quarter. Same store sales jumped to 4% from –9% year on year. The reason: how Starbucks embraced customer research surveys and found out the seemingly basic finding that people in different regions had different tastes for their coffee: