Another similar case happened a year later, in 2005, when an employee filled a suit against the company by claiming that Starbucks violated FLSA requirements. Many of these incidents took place inside Starbucks, which denotes the fact that this is a company's drawback. Another weakness to be mentioned is that the company is marketing items in the next percentage: 77% beverages, 15% food products, 3% bean coffee, and 5% equipments and devices for making coffee. This is a weakness because a company should not only rely on a single product because it could be negatively affected when the consumers stop or reduce buying that product. Another weakness is that the employees of the company have a low productivity and as Datamonitor (2011) specifies "Starbucks' revenue per employee was $53,408 in 2006 as compared to an industry average of $93,330 per employee", which is significantly lower. (p. 6).
As we go on with the SWOT analysis, Starbucks should be able to find opportunities in new markets as it opened various stores in multiple countries from 2005 until 2010. Another opportunity was the formation of a new record label with Concord Music Group called Hear Music. This happens in 2007 when Hear Music label creates a direct connection with artist and spread recording at Starbucks locations. Also, the development of specialty coffee market which entailed creating premium-price coffees is seen as an opportunity for Starbucks.
Lastly, in assessing threats, it can be said that Starbucks has a lot of powerful competitors in the coffee industry, such as other specialty coffee shops, doughnuts shops, and restaurants. Volatile coffee market is evaluated as a threat because coffee is Starbucks' greatest input cost, accounting for 10%-20% of the cost of goods sold. Probably, one of the most important threats for Starbucks' is the Forbidden City controversy which is about the fact that an outlet from Forbidden City of Beijing is in conflict with the wealthy Chinese culture of the city.
