Disadvantages Of AB Inbev

Interbrew had developed into the world's fourth largest brewer by acquiring and managing a large portfolio of national and regional beer brands in markets around the world. More recently, senior management had decided to develop one of their premium beers, Stella Artois, as a global brand. This case examines the early stages of Interbrew's global branding strategy and tactics, enabling students to consider these concepts in the context of a fragmented but consolidating industry.

     The brewing industry was once held to competition among many breweries in small geographic areas. That was almost a century ago. The U.S. brewing industry today is characterized by the dominance of three brewers, which I will talk about in this paper. There are many factors today that make the beer industry an oligopoly. Such factors include various advancements in technology (packaging, shipping and production), takeovers and mergers, economies of scale, barriers to entry, high concentration, and many other factors that I will cover in this paper. Over the course of the paper I will try to define an oligopoly, give a brief history of the brewing industry, and finally to show how the brewing industry today is an

Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.

I believe that currently AB is keeping a close eye on competitors, especially those throughout the craft beer industry. Over the past few years, AB has not only been monitoring the expansion and popularity of smaller breweries, but also has been acquiring craft breweries in order to compete with the growing craft beer industry. With the rapid growth of craft breweries, I believe AB has been focusing more effort on targeting those people that seek out craft beer or who are interested in trying more craft beers, which is why they have purchased smaller craft breweries such as Wicked Weed, 10 Barrel, Elysian, Blue Point, and Goose Island (Herz, 2017). Managing their competitors closely can help keep them one step ahead in markets and also in acquisitions within the industry.

According to recent studies, the age group of 25-40 year old males and females purchase a reliable amount of small appliance to bring in this product. A household income of $40,000 a year is enough purchasing power for a household to afford this product. Through recent studies, it has shown that cocktails are mostly popular with individuals that like to share their experience with others and go to bars and restaurants because of the specialty cocktails that are offered. The United States has been chosen as the target location because of Company G’s location.

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. continually seeks opportunities to maximize shareholder value and increase efficiency. Through their extremely effective marketing

Molson Coors is a thriving international brewing company that has nine Signature Brew drinks and 123 Special Brew drinks that ranges from non-alcoholic to alcoholic (Molson Coors Brewing Company, 2016b). They have multiple markets around the world which contributes to the success of the company in the brewing industry. This report analyzes Molson Coors’ internal and external environments which determines their position in the brewing industry. It also discusses strategies the company uses in order to be successful in their industry. Molson Coors shares the industry with its main competitors but has its own uniqueness that makes its business stand out. Molson Coors is a successful business that presents opportunities for economic growth.

End users are those individuals walking in the company stores, ordering a smoothie and a cookie, paying the cashier and then telling her friend how wonderful the ambiance is. This buyer segment does not purchase large amounts of product at one time and likely chooses Jamba because of the quality of the ingredients. With no switching costs and a growing industry offering many options, patrons of smoothie cafés can freely purchase their delightful cool beverage anywhere. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the number of stores within the “snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars” industry grew from 36,036 in 2002 to 49,463 in 2007 [ (U.S. Census Bureau) ]. This trend means that Jamba Juice will have to increase customer loyalty to battle the increased competition.

When purchasing beer, customers have a wide variety to choose from. This provides customers with some power, as there are no switching costs between choosing one beer over another. Interbrew could focus on differentiation in order to combat this. They could market their premium beer

In May of 2016, The European Commission signed off on Anheuser- Busch InBev’s more than $100 billion merger with SABMiller after the companies agreed to sell SABMiller’s premium brands in Europe and some other European operations (Bray). The merging of SABMiller and AB Inbev create the worlds largest beer company accounting for approximately 30% of beer industry sales (Bray). Margrethe Vestager, the commissioner in charge of European competition policy defended the decision to allow the merger to go through by stating “Today’s decision will ensure that competition is not weakened in these markets and that E.U. consumers are not worse off….Europeans buy around 125 billion euros of beer every year, so even a relatively small price increase could cause considerable harm to consumers” (Bray).

In the summer of 2008, InBev NV, a Belgian-based brewing company formed from the merger of InterBrew and AmBev, offered a bid of $46.6 billion to acquire Anheuser-Busch Co to create the world’s largest brewing company at $65 a share. The initial offer was subsequently declined in part because the company felt the offer undervalued the company greatly. InBev later increased their offer to $70 a share and in Mid-July, Anheuser-Busch accepted the offer making the total cost of the deal $54.8 billion dollars. The issue then becomes whether the offer of $70 is justifiable to InBev’s shareholders. The merger brings about two different management styles. The culture at InBev focused on extreme cost-cutting measures and profitable incentive-based compensation programs. However, Anheuser-Busch’s culture differed in that they prided itself on philanthropy, diversity, and community involvement. In addition, this company possessed many luxurious offices and corporate fleet of aircrafts. Furthermore, they invested heavily in advertising, derived most of their profits in the United States, and possessed a lackluster international expansion plan. Issues the financial managers face will be differing business philosophies in regards to marketing (“Grow/Defend/Maintain/Cash” matrix approach vs the large marketing budget of Anheuser-Busch), culture (cost cutting measures vs company perks), and the future of the twelve

As the world’s largest brewer, AB Inbev has the ability to compete in new and foreign markets as a strong threat. Due to their enormous capital and expansion-based strategy, they can enter any market as a challenger and shutdown competition to become the leading brewer in this market. As an aggregated note we can also see this in domestic or already dominated markets because due to economics of scale they can achieve differentiated products at a low cost.

As the future growth of the industry also is shown to be positive, the company’s fundamental strategies in terms of management, employees satisfaction, cost cutting to reduce unnecessary expenditure, giving constant returns in terms of dividend, refinancing the money into for the expansion of brands not working well for the company ,tapping for the emerging markets, entering into 40 different variants show a clear indication that merger proves to be a great move for the company and beverage industry performance

Although sales of premium brands have fallen in a steady response to the growing popularity of the craft beer. The industry revenue has been stable over the past 5 years. As a result, from 2011 to 2016 the industry revenue is expected an increase and growth annually at 6.7 percent over the five years,with a total of $39.5 billion . (IBISWorld iExpert) In the long-term, these numbers are expected that grow 0.9 percent annually within the next five years. The potential growth will be seen in the traditional and premium beer sector. As a response, the giant companies in the industry Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors look forward into the merges and acquisitions as a strategy to maintain market dominance. The strategy is based on the

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