Impacts of short-term and long-term trends from the general environment can be impactful and challenging to a company. In this case, Starbucks has faced and is facing these trends right now in the form of the the global pandemic as the short-term trend that threatens to turn into a long-term one and the pressures to exercise social and environmental responsibility in action as the long-term trend.

When talking about the global pandemic, Starbucks, like many other establishments in the food and drink industry, was impacted. Starbucks saw a substantial drop in consumers in the beginning of the pandemic. Starbucks began to lose profits due to the quarantine nature of the pandemic and as such, had to take action. According to Lombardi, et al. (2021), Starbucks had to partner with and in some cases, establish their own delivery services. Furthermore, Starbucks had to close down many of its stores, retaining and operating only drive thru functions with a skeleton crew, and make merchandise sales unavailable. Due to these impacts, Starbucks ended up having to change their work model for employees running the store and as the pandemic trend changed, Starbucks had to adapt accordingly, improvising as the trend changed and still changes.

In terms of social and ethical standards, this long-term trend has impacted the way Starbucks sources materials and do business. According to Starbucks (2021), the company practices fair trade in sourcing their coffee. This means that the coffee that Starbucks uses and sells were cultivated sustainably and the workers are fairly compensated. This is further impacted Starbucks’ operations to act in a way that supports worker’s rights for store employees as well as farmers, conserves water, and reduces the carbon footprint of the company to preserve biodiversity.

References:

Lombardi, C. Chidiac, N. Record, B (2021). Starbucks coffee corporation’s marketing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Innovative Marketing , 17(2), 177-188. doi:10.21511/im.17(2).2021.16

Starbucks (2021). Coffee. https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/sourcing/coffee. Retrieved November 18, 2021.