very expensive but you need to balance the everincreasing costs of this prime real estate by being in relatively less expensive areas frequented by the youth ccd has been successful in india because of its beantocup business strategy which gives it control over bean production and processing and greater efficiency from its backend set up while starbucks does have similar strengths thanks to its tata tieup industry watchers say its relative lack of size in india means its at a disadvantage in squeezing out similar economies of scale opening a new store isnt just about finding a good location and dressing it up for a brandconscious a u d i ence instead coffee chains need to figure out a tricky supply chain how to get food and beverage to these outlets quickly while keeping quality high the others who dont have this backward linkage have predictably struggled while the opportunity may be tempting food and beverage outlets are dealing with a soft market where consumers are cutting down on how often they eat out and reducing how much they order when they do for cafes such as ccd or starbucks this is a blessing in disguise consumers are reducing their spend on fullscale restaurant meals and instead scaling it down to a coffee and a snack starbucks advent since he started his coffee chain siddhartha is facing up to perhaps his biggest challenge starbucks which opened its first store in 1971 in seattles pike market today operates 20519 stores globally in the us the chain has become a byword for a quick upscale cuppa not just coffee but increasingly tea too with teavana oprah chai launched with talk show host oprah winfrey with alist celebs and executives all having their personal favourites starbucks has attracted thousands of loyal customers to its my starbucks loyalty programme and has even worked with tech startup square to pilot cashless transactions at its stores while starbucks has till recently focused on its home market it has changed tack in the past few years for example it announced ambitious plans to scale up its presence in china it will open 700odd stores this year even as it looked to manage tough economic headwinds in october 2012 the firm announced a jv with the tata group to launch some 50 stores in india while starbucks thought of initially going it alone in india foreign direct investments in single brand retailing are kosher it decided to lean on tata global beverages experience in the coffee industry supply chain to give it additional leverage here expanding faster in china and then india is financially prudent for starbucks starbucks operating margin for the second quarter of financial year 2014 ended march was 328 for the china asiapacific segment 216 for the americas and 57 for europe the middle east and africa while ccd had to build its brand from scratch in india starbucks hopes to leverage a globally familiar label with its target audience when