Starbucks Customers Gets An Ideastorm
This is a good move by Starbucks — as part of their revitalization they have launched a crowdsourcing site (www.mystarbucksidea.com) similar to Dell’s Ideastorm (a GCI Digital project we are proud of).
Like Ideastorm, the site lets Starbucks customers submit ideas for improving the company’s business, products and customer service. There are a lot of good ideas already in play on the site. If Starbucks promotes it properly and keeps it “fresh” they will generate a large pipeline of ideas for consideration.
The challenge will quickly become “Idea Management.” That is, putting the people, process and technology in place to assess all these ideas and, ultimately, make go/no go decisions. I’ve implemented idea management programs at Accenture and observed Dell sorting through the thousands of ideas it’s received through Ideastorm. The customer voting definitely will help Starbucks focus their resources on the top ideas. But at some point, business cases have to be developed and investment decisions and trade-offs have to be made — this is where thing may bog down without a good process in place. To do it right is a non-trivial process, in my view.
Starbucks does reference their “Idea Partners”: “The Starbucks Idea Partners are Starbucks employees who’ve been chosen because of their level of expertise in their specific areas. We’ve got a team of more than 40 Idea Partners, whose specialties range from coffee to entertainment to community programs, ready to hear your ideas.” Getting the right people involved is critical.
In any case, good luck Starbucks.
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