Yet, inventories at the retail level are kept low in order to control costs. This is facilitated by strong logistics. Deficiencies in logistics would hamper growth prospects and compromise the Starbucks Experience. Moreover, the firm's ability to translate this competency into international markets will go a long way to determining how successful the company can be in those markets, in particular with regards to the revisiting the same saturation strategy they have employed in North America. The final core competency that helps to distinguish Starbucks is its human resources. This supports the Starbucks Experience, in that the company is consistently able to identify and train candidates to fill strict criteria within the framework of a low-paying food service job. The corporate culture and benefits package contribute to this competency, indicating that a substantial amount of thought has gone into the Starbucks human resources policy and its role in the company's success. The one area of deficiency with respect to this competency is that it has not traditionally been applied to innovation. Starbucks will need to show that it can adapt its competency in human resources to meeting the different needs that the organization will have going forward.

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