To support aggressive 5x growth without increasing IT budgets or headcount, Starbucks shifted from a traditional "plan, build, run" IT model to a more flexible service-based model using VMware's Software Defined Data Center. This virtualized, automated, and managed Starbucks' compute, storage, availability, network and security through a single console, enabling efficient capacity planning and performance management with the same IT staff. Starbucks can now do more with existing resources and centralized management has provided real-time visibility across applications, security, and storage.

1. In order for Starbucks’ IT
infrastructure
to support it’s proposed
5x growth
without a significant increase
in IT budgets and headcount,
the company had to shift
from a ‘plan, develop, build,
run’ IT model to a more
flexible and efficient
service-based model.
Starbucks began
implementing
VMware’s Software
Defined Data Center,
a fully-integrated suite of
tools to virtualize, manage
and automate all of the
data center elements,
including compute, storage
and availability, and
network and security.
Starbucks is now doing
more with the same IT
headcount.
The company has
centralized management
for security, applications
and storage through a
single console with
real-time visibility,
enabling efficient capacity
planning and performance
management.
Network & Security
Compute & Memory
Storage & Availability
Automation
& Management
To read the full case study, click here.
Serving up Improved Scalability
with Cost-Reduction through
VMware’s Software-Defined Data Center
Enabling agressive growth with VMware’s Software-Defined Data Center
“So that’s really
the driving force -
to remove
infrastructure as
the bottleneck to
delivering
projects to the
business,
commoditizing
our infrastructure
so it’s predictable
and consumable
and then really
provide a higher
value in our
service offerings.”
John Shepard
Director, Global
Technology, Starbucks
Coffee Company
In 2012, the company developed a 5-year vision
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
$
$ 100 billion
market cap
500,000
employees
A specialty retailer poised for growth
Starbucks is the world’s largest
coffeehouse company
18,000
stores
62
countries
150,000
employees
Collectively, the US market for
specialty foods is estimated to be
$63 billion
Retail market trends
71% of retail CMOs say they can’t
capture and use data fast enough
to capture market opportunities
Nearly 70% are
consumed by operations
and maintenance
As much as 85% of
their computing capacity
sits idle
Retail IT budgetsUS Market
85% of multi-channel shoppers expect
a seamless experience across all channels
yet only 13% of retailers provide this
because IT systems are siloed
Untapped potential
approximately
80% of sales are
through retail stores