Monday, December 19, 2005
Excelsior Versus Starbucks - A Strategic Analysis Of The Japanese Coffee Market
Tonight, I finally got time to post a strategic comparison I wrote on Excelsior and Starbucks, the two biggest players in the Japanese coffee market. The essay originally contained lots of neat matrixes and graphs, but I quickly discovered that converting these from a Word document to html is rather tedious. Therefore, I posted the document without any graphics, but hopefully it still makes some sense.
I should mention that I love Starbucks, mainly because of their anti smoking policy. At almost all other coffee establishments in Japan, including Doutor and Excelsior, the smokers sit in the same room as non-smokers. Most Japanese coffee shops are rather small, thus sitting in the non-smoking section will make you smell like a tobacco factory after a few minutes.
I spent a short hour in a Starbucks today reading through parts of Muhammad Yunus' book "Banker to the Poor", which mainly is an autobiography on how the author founded the Grameen Bank. My favourite Bangladeshi colleague lent it to me, and I have been reading bits and pieces of the book during the last few months. The main reason he lent me the book is probably that he and Muhammad Yunus graduated from the same Chittagong university, but perhaps he also hoped that I could have some influence on the Nobel Committee. While Muhammad Yunus has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics several times, he should also be eligible for the Peace Prize. However, since the Norwegian committee mainly consists of left wing socialists and outright idiots, this is not likely to happen anytime soon. Some random Kenyan tree hugger (Wangari Maathai) won the prize in 2004, while some other completely random people have won it in the past.
Since the objective assessment seems to be that Muhammad Yunus created microcredit, he has probably won a few prizes already. However, if he gives up the principle of actually having poor people repay their loans, the Norwegian committee might consider him. Another candidate I would like them to consider is Bill Gates, who is donating more money to charities than most of us can imagine.
Another very interesting fact I read in Muhammad Yunus' book is that three million Bangladehis were killed in the country's independence war from Pakistan in 1971. This is an absolutely incredible number, and I can not claim to have heard it mentioned at all in newspapers back home. Wouldn't there at least be anniversaries and stuff on tv? While there is still debate ongoing about the exact figure, in terms of human suffering, the recent liberation of Iraq appears like a picnic in comparison.
Tonight, I finally got time to post a strategic comparison I wrote on Excelsior and Starbucks, the two biggest players in the Japanese coffee market. The essay originally contained lots of neat matrixes and graphs, but I quickly discovered that converting these from a Word document to html is rather tedious. Therefore, I posted the document without any graphics, but hopefully it still makes some sense.
I should mention that I love Starbucks, mainly because of their anti smoking policy. At almost all other coffee establishments in Japan, including Doutor and Excelsior, the smokers sit in the same room as non-smokers. Most Japanese coffee shops are rather small, thus sitting in the non-smoking section will make you smell like a tobacco factory after a few minutes.
I spent a short hour in a Starbucks today reading through parts of Muhammad Yunus' book "Banker to the Poor", which mainly is an autobiography on how the author founded the Grameen Bank. My favourite Bangladeshi colleague lent it to me, and I have been reading bits and pieces of the book during the last few months. The main reason he lent me the book is probably that he and Muhammad Yunus graduated from the same Chittagong university, but perhaps he also hoped that I could have some influence on the Nobel Committee. While Muhammad Yunus has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics several times, he should also be eligible for the Peace Prize. However, since the Norwegian committee mainly consists of left wing socialists and outright idiots, this is not likely to happen anytime soon. Some random Kenyan tree hugger (Wangari Maathai) won the prize in 2004, while some other completely random people have won it in the past.
Since the objective assessment seems to be that Muhammad Yunus created microcredit, he has probably won a few prizes already. However, if he gives up the principle of actually having poor people repay their loans, the Norwegian committee might consider him. Another candidate I would like them to consider is Bill Gates, who is donating more money to charities than most of us can imagine.
Another very interesting fact I read in Muhammad Yunus' book is that three million Bangladehis were killed in the country's independence war from Pakistan in 1971. This is an absolutely incredible number, and I can not claim to have heard it mentioned at all in newspapers back home. Wouldn't there at least be anniversaries and stuff on tv? While there is still debate ongoing about the exact figure, in terms of human suffering, the recent liberation of Iraq appears like a picnic in comparison.
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