Can Chipotle’s boss turn Starbucks around?

Starbucks’ surging share price also reflects the disastrous 512-day tenure of Laxman Narasimhan, its departing boss. He inherited a business struggling with an excessively long menu and inefficient stores. In the 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada”, Anne Hathaway is tasked with collecting a “no foam skimmed latte with an extra shot” for a stony fashion editor played by Meryl Streep. Today that would pass for an easy order. Most drinks are cold and customised. Food now makes up a fifth of sales. After tapping into the Starbucks app, Ms Hathaway might abandon hope after seeing the wait time. She would not be the first. Sales in America declined by 2%, year on year, during the most recent quarter, despite the average order costing 4% more. Critics dismissed Mr Narasimhan’s response (the “triple shot reinvention with two pumps” strategy) as a verbose laundry list. Starbucks needed a well-caffeinated visionary. In Mr Narasimhan it got a sugary management consultant.