Business analysis project
Starbucks vs. Dunkin Competitor Analysis
A comparison of two major consumer coffee brands across pricing, customer appeal, positioning, product focus, and marketing, presented as a business presentation with a growth recommendation.
The question
Where do Starbucks and Dunkin actually differ, and what would that difference imply for a growth recommendation?
Scope
- Pricing
- Target-customer appeal
- Market positioning
- Product focus
- Marketing
- Competitive strengths
What I did
- Compared the two brands across each dimension above to identify meaningful differences rather than surface ones.
- Developed a business presentation summarizing the findings and a growth recommendation.
- Combined research, analytical reasoning, and visual communication in a single deliverable.
Approach
What is already done
The comparison itself and the presentation that summarizes it are complete. The work involved deciding which dimensions actually distinguish two brands that look similar from the outside, and then holding both brands to the same set of questions instead of describing each one in its own terms.
The presentation ends with a growth recommendation, which is the part that had to be argued rather than described.
What is still being built
I am expanding this into a process-focused business analysis case study. That means naming a stakeholder and the decision they face, stating the business problem in their terms, laying out the evidence, setting out risks, and then giving a recommendation with next steps.
That structure is the direction I want my analysis work to take, so this project is the one I am using to practise it.
What exists so far
- A business presentation covering the comparison and a growth recommendation
No charts or dashboard images are shown yet. The visuals for this project are not finished, and I would rather show nothing than show a mock-up of something I have not built.
What this cannot tell you
The limits are part of the work, not a disclaimer bolted onto it.
- The presentation and its specific recommendation are not published on this site yet, so the figures behind them are not shown here.
- The comparison draws on public brand information rather than internal company data.
- The extended stakeholder-and-process case study is in progress and is described here as planned work, not as completed work.
What I learned
- Two brands only become comparable once you decide which questions both have to answer.
- A recommendation is where an analysis stops describing and starts committing, and it needs its reasoning shown.
- A presentation is a piece of analysis in its own right — what gets cut is a decision about what mattered.
Next steps
Planned work. None of this is finished yet.
- Define the stakeholder and the decision the analysis is meant to support.
- Restate the comparison as a business problem with evidence, risks, and a recommendation.
- Add next steps and success measures so the recommendation can be acted on.
- Publish the original presentation once it has been prepared for a public audience.