Starbucks Goes Digital With New COO

This is very big news for digital, customer engagement, mobile, omnichannel, etc.  Starbucks is going all in with digital with their new Chief Operating Officer.

This article tells a bit about the mobile efforts Starbucks is putting forth:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/534016/starbucks-bets-the-store-on-mobile/

Here is a snippet or two from that piece:

Starbucks’s mobile wallet is actually a digital stored-value card more akin to its popular gift card. Its success—the app now accounts for 16 percent of Starbucks’s 47 million weekly transactions (up 50 percent from a year ago)—makes it both a model and a target for payment apps from other retailers and tech companies alike.

...

New alternatives like Apple Pay and rival retailers’ apps present challenges for Starbucks. Dunkin’ Donuts, for instance, less than a year after relaunching its mobile app with a new rewards program in January 2014, said it reached two million rewards members and 10 million app downloads.

Here is a piece on the new COO:

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/starbucks-names-former-microsoft-juniper-exec-kevin-johnson-new-president-coo/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) today announced it has appointed Kevin Johnson as president and chief operating officer. Johnson has been a Starbucks board member since 2009, and will now take a central operating role effective March 1.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant