A Venti CEO Extra Hot For Starbucks Please, Elon Musk Is The TikTok Of Corporates, Ghost Kitchens & Digital Dexterity

Alexa!, Can You Order A Venti CEO Extra Hot For Starbucks Please?

Your order will be 20.43 million US$ with 3 big challenges. Would like to use any points today? Use 25 or 50 stars?

With the return of Howard Shultz as an interim CEO but as his third stint, one does wonder what is it with these companies that they cannot move on to other leadership philosophies or do the past ones create circumstances where the new CEO starts off with limitations (Disney, Twitter, Tata & more).

The market performance has been patchy but to be fair it also reflects the the past 3 years of Covid turbulence and not just Kevin Johnson's impact.

Starbucks was the original 'third place' Town square Community back in 1990's. Can they shape a community in the new world?

I see three big challenges for any new CEO at Starbucks (full brief in the audio clip below):

1. What is the core experience in the new world? What is the core purpose in the digital era? What is the adaptation of community focus that propelled them to success so far?
2. Are employees still partners? Digital dexterity has been great for customers but not for their baristas. The complexity in jobs, volume and influences even from platforms like TikTok have contributed to union movements in some stores.
3. What are they doing with the cash reserve from the customers, who pay in advance for a future purchase of a coffee. They hold 1billion+ US&, how can they use this to drive next level innovation for both customers and employees?

Single industry thinking is dead.

Digital is not an insular play for a company. 56% of disruption your company faces comes from outside your industry.

So who are my picks for the CEO role for this amazing brand? Listen in!:

Slurp!

& Now TikTok and the missed lessons for Twitter

Wealth Management & Personal Finance Experts, Food Enthusiasts, Business Coaches, Dancers, Book Stores & Book Readers, Culture Interpreters, Live Video Bloggers, Wine Connoisseurs, Skill Trainers, Dogs, Cats and everything in-between. All are on it, making it the most visited social app beating Google in 2021. You are in its influence and may not even realize it. Unless you are Google, Facebook or Youtube feeling the pinch. It is the new Amazon.

With a short video format, TikTok has captured the creator economy. They have done something Quibi could not in similar format though they were focussed on curated content. But what's up with this Quibi name anyway, un-relatable and not a verb. TikTok being a verb is evident on the time spent on the platform:

Musk Is The TikTok Of Corporate World

The acquisition bid by Musk for Twitter is probably the only marketing he needs for Tesla or Starlink, in addition to having an unfettered mouthpiece for his unhinged moments.

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge Musk fan. He is disruptive, he is bold and has the ability to have people fund his ideas. I love SpaceX. But the Twitter saga was more a referendum on the new Twitter CEO and the Board as of the ability for any billionaire's ability to play a cross industry disruptive play. You cannot have a poison pill resistance to a disruptive force based on how Twitter could be reimagined. Musk put out his plan in series of tweets on how he would remake Twitter and the changes he would like to bring in. This was a direct pitch to all investors and the public at large. The Board responded with the poison pill and not their counter plan of their re-imagination of Twitter.

And this morning (May 5th), we saw the lack of faith in the new CEO & Board come bare with the headlines of Musk indicating to be Twitters CEO, in the interim to begin with.

Now only if Twitter focussed on creating an algorithm as addictive as TikTok? After all 240 characters is the text version of 10 minutes on video.

Starbucks should be happy that he is not interested in them.

And he was everywhere, I can do with a week off Musk. But am sure, he will be not be open to giving us all a week off from him hence his appearance at the Met Gala'22.

Back to it: A Kitchen Can Be Anywhere With Digital Dexterity

I came across and took a picture of this Wendy's Ghost Kitchen "For Delivery Only" setup in a shopping area parking lot recently. And then I saw a few more from other brands across Los Angeles. This model driven by digital dexterity is of significant cost advantage to restaurant brands and will continue to evolve. Catch up on this from my past clip on Ghost Kitchens or the full newsletter.