Starbucks !

I'll never forget the day I mistakenly ordered a 10 Dinar awful tasting Starbucks at Dubai Airport.

But have been pretty fascinated about what drives the company's success. This article does'nt answer it, though makes an interesting read.

From one coffee-bean store in 1971 (the outlet still in Pike Place Market), Starbucks now has 6,458, mostly in the U.S. and in all but one state (South Dakota)—so far. That number will click relentlessly upward, as steady as an atomic clock, advancing at least once every eight hours, three times every day, 23 times in a week, 100 times a month. By the end of this year, during which Starbucks expects a record $4 billion in coffee

Though Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spices dates to 1971, the Starbucks Corporation of today wasn't born until August 1987, when new owner Schultz launched his marketing strategy: "More than retail, but not a restaurant," as he explains in his 1997 autobiography that details the birth of a company and an industry—and his eureka moment when he suddenly realized that selling specialty coffee by the cup was a profitable entrée to the land of steamed milk and honey. Until then, Starbucks was essentially a bean store.

it wasn't until the sixth store opened, at Fourth Avenue and Spring Street 19 years ago this month, that Starbucks introduced its coffee bar

we are part of our customers' daily routine, often crossing a street could interrupt that routine

But big as it is, Starbucks has cornered only 7 percent of the overall coffee market

that its customers choose among retailers primarily on the basis of product quality, service, and convenience, and, to a lesser extent, on price," referring, perhaps, to the $4.75 Frappuccino

choices include tall, grande, and venti, Starbuckese for small, medium, and large). Its ice cream is "superpremium," its beverages "expertly crafted," and its product line "best of class." Starbucks sees all that as part of its coffee "culture," which it guards carefully.