Brian Niccol’s syrupy praise for store workers does not impress. He should focus on the hard problem of rising pricesSo this is what you get from a $113m chief executive: a ditching of profits guidance served with a dollop of platitudes about going back to the company’s roots. Amazingly, the stock market still thinks Starbucks is worth 25% more than before Brian Niccol was appointed.To be fair to the new boss, he’s been in post for a month, so it’s too soon to expect a fully formed strategy. He was merely offering an initial helicopter view of operations (or perhaps the perspective from his private jet on the commute from Newport Beach, California, to the Seattle head office). That inevitably involved syrupy praise for “our green-apron partners” and a homage to the unconvincing corporate claim that a chain with 36,000 outlets in 84 countries can still style itself as “the community coffeehouse”. Continue reading...