When Starbucks was expanding and reinventing itself in 1990s, it hired Scott Redbury to maintain the soul and integrity during the expansion phase. Mr. Redbury was able to successfully expand Starbucks from freestanding coffee shops into airlines, hotels, restaurants to even bottled drinks. Starbucks went international in 1996 when they opened in Tokyo, Japan. In the same decade, another company was planning to expand in a similar fashion as Starbucks: Airwalk. Until then Airwalk was serving a specific audience. They wanted to expand beyond skateboarding; they wanted to go international. Airwalk went into other sports like surfing, biking and snowboarding. They even became the third biggest footwear brand behind Nike and Adidas. But the expansion plans of Starbucks and …show more content…
While Starbucks was able to grow from a brand to an icon, Airwalk was unable to reach the status of an icon. Target’s expansion plan in Canada and Walmart’s market venture into Germany both ended as failures. While Target failed in Canada because they did not maintain their original soul and focus that were needed to be successful there, Walmart failed in Germany because they kept their strategy the same and failed to adapt to Germany’s culture. Both Target and Walmart in these ventures failed to understand the culture in the new market. Why are companies always looking to expand? Why do individuals always thrive to grow? This is the basic human trait – always wanting more. Leveraging technology to access information effectively has opened up limitless scope for expansion. While it used to take decades for a brand to transform into an icon, like Coke which tied itself to the cultural values over time, now in the age of information technology and medical advancements, it takes only a fraction of time for a brand to become an icon. Google and Tesla are perfect examples to illustrate