Case Study: Starbucks achieves faster store openings with Hive

How Starbucks Rolls Out New Stores With Hive’s Project Management Platform

Starbucks’ Concept Design Studio, which defines the interior palette for 13,000+ locations in the Americas, was juggling thousands of pre‑approved items and 40+ concurrent projects while split between New York and Seattle. Managing work in Excel with files in Dropbox and chats in Outlook proved error‑prone, siloed, and unscalable; the team needed visibility into priorities, integration with Dropbox, and a way to accommodate different working styles. They turned to Hive’s project management platform to solve these challenges.

Hive centralized every project — from item vetting to catalog management — providing real‑time visibility with Gantt charts, status views, calendars, and automated action updates. According to Starbucks, Hive eliminated miscommunication, saved hours of unnecessary meetings, and delivered full transparency across projects, enabling the team to design and open new stores and markets faster than before.

Starbucks

Brian Collins

Interior Concepts Design Manager