From 8/17 BW article on Starbucks

Says a former executive at SBUX when the company was struggling a few years ago:  "When the numbers went south, we couldn't even make an educated guess about why."  Today, store sales data helped Howard Schultz see an important difference between the morning (when coffee is a necessity) and the afternoon (when it is an indulgence).  "We've never had that level of segmentation before," Schultz says.  "It's a new tool in terms of being able to move the business in different ways."  This from a guy who was quoted as saying "I despise research", but people much smarter than me pushed me in this direction and I've gone along.