IntroductionBodyThe First ExampleKFC ChinaPolitical EnvironmentEconomic EnvironmentSociocultural Essay

Submitted By MelodyWei
Words: 530
Pages: 3

Introduction
Body
The first example
KFC China
Political environment
Economic environment
Sociocultural environment
Technological environment
The second example
STARBUCKS UK
Starbucks coffee company, which is a global coffee company, operates more than 20,519 retail stores in 65 countries (Starbucks Company Profile, 2014). Starbucks coffee company headquartered in Washington, the US, and entering the UK market since 1998. Currently, there are more than 549 company-operated stores operated in the UK and 215 licensed-stores (Starbucks Fiscal 2013 Annual Report, 2013). The mission of Starbucks states as “to inspire and nurture the human spirit- one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time”. However, compared with the year of 2012, more than 40 company-operated stores had closed (Starbucks Fiscal 2013 Annual Report, 2013), due to Starbucks coffee company faced the significant challenges in the UK market. The highly competitive of coffee industry with the top competitors in the UK market includes Costa, McDonalds, Dunkin Brands Group and others.
Political environment
According to a special report conducted by Reuters (2012) as cited by John (2014), it pointed out that Starbucks UK has been involved in a large scale tax avoidance scandal, which attracted criticism and there were even street protests of unions’ participations, non-government organisations and individuals in London. According to BBC News (2013) reported that Starbucks certain schemes has allowed the company not to pay taxes in the UK despite generating the sales of GBP 400 million during the year of 2012 alone. Moreover, the raw materials of Starbucks sources over have attracted the attention of the politicians in the UK, which is the reason of Starbucks launched the “fair trade” practices that have been approved by global corporations and the governments.
Economic environment
UK, as a highly developed country, has a very strong powerful of purchasing. However, due to the global economic recession, Starbucks has been driven by the external economic situation, which has decreased the profitability. In contrast, Starbucks has to remain the costs of operational and labour costs to fight with the inflationary macroeconomic environment. Furthermore, Starbucks tend to decrease the price of beverage instead of consumers minify on their coffee consumption.
Sociocultural environment
UK is a long