AB InBev

"First, AB InBev creates a basic, simple prototype, to get an understanding of how the company and consumers might react. Then the company provides a small amount of capital, perhaps $50,000, to test it out further. Telles finishes: Three months from now, there are ten guys showing. Two are going to be good. You have to be merciless, to cut those that do not deliver, and then you give $500,000 or more or something [to the ideas that show promise].14"

"What distinguishes you from an average company is the people you can attract, retain, develop, train, promote. Behind a brand that’s doing well in the market, you have people who understand consumers, have insights, execute according to those insights, and translate it. —Carlos Brito, CEO of AB InBev, Hire the Right People Speech"

"AmBev’s talent factory, spilling out droves of highly-talented executives at full speed, was able to expatriate more than one hundred executives of all seniority levels to international outposts of the newly-created company. Carlos Brito, AB InBev’s current CEO, was one of them: he left AmBev to run Labatt for some time, and to get some international mileage under his belt, a move agreed upon with the Belgians before he took over as InBev’s CEO in Leuven."

"The importance of gaps Gaps are a recurring theme within AB InBev, which closely observes the difference between where the company and its executives are today, and where they want to be in the future (…"

"Candor Transparency and free information flow ease decision-making and minimize conflicts. - Garantia’s 18 Commandments We believe common sense and simplicity are usually better guidelines than unnecessary sophistication and complexity. - AB InBev’s 10 Principles In big companies, only good news arrives at the top. - Carlos Brito, Endeavor CEO Summit"

"At AB InBev, as at GE, losing a top talent (a 4) is a sin, and there’s a company-wide goal of top talent retention."

"the trio believes their only really sustainable competitive advantage is their management style, they sought to chase growth by purchasing “mature businesses, with pulverized (and/or weak) ownership, strong, recognized brands and poor management,” where “external and internal owners could make a difference,” in the words of Marcel Telles. Acquisitions supplied top-line growth, and management turnaround supplied earnings growth, a combination that pleased ambitious employees and shareholders alike. Acquisitions enabled Antarctica—then AmBev and finally InBev—to export talented individuals to a number of M&A-created positions (the Brazilians secretly pride themselves in having “taken over” much of AB InBev’s management structure) around the globe. That is…"

"Candidates are screened through multiple tests and interviews, after which they meet again, now on a more personalized basis, with top executives, who give their final sign-off on the most promising candidates. This ensures culture fit, and tips the scale towards AB InBev if the candidate has competing offers."

"MBAs AB InBev and the other companies owned by the trio also hire top-tier MBAs. It all started with Carlos Brito, who was the first student to have his MBA financed by Jorge Paulo Lemann, in the 1980s. After his Stanford program ended, Brito was hired at Garantia, and went on to Brahma after the acquisition. Lemann and his two main partners then founded Fundação Estudar, a charity focused on handing out merit-based loans to promising graduate and undergraduate Brazilian students. Fundação Estudar gave the trio an unprecedented pipeline of high-quality postgraduate students (since then, the NGO has extended its program to undergrads), a great number of which were hired within the trio’s companies. MBAs from the world’s top business schools are selected for summer internships, and the top performers are then extended full-time offers, very much like what happens at Wall Street firms."

"These are very old-school, working-class values with which anyone can relate. AB InBev’s leaders firmly believe great people can understand matters so thoroughly that they can distill complex concepts into simple, approachable explanations that the whole company can easily grasp."

"A gap example A scientist starts by defining a problem to be solved (or theory to be proved.) For example, someone at AB InBev may be interested in understanding why sales fell by 10% in a certain Los Angeles neighborhood. The employee formulates a hypothesis as to why the problem (the sales drop) happened. For example, he may conjecture that it happened because of a major political demonstration that happened in the region. The next step is observing the problem in…"

"In 2014, AB InBev’s Global Management Trainee (GMT) program had a class of 147 young professionals, chosen from a pool of more than 94,000 candidates."

"Figure 8: Big dreams break down into goals. Source: Vicente Falconi, AB InBev, author."

"A big dream The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. - Michelangelo A big and challenging dream makes everyone row in the same direction. - Garantia’s 18 Commandments Our shared dream energizes everyone to work in the same direction. To be the Best Beer Company Bringing People Together for a Better World. - AB InBev’s 10 Principles"

"Talented people like simplicity. That’s where they thrive. - Carlos Brito, 2012 Endeavor CEO Summit We also believe in keeping it simple: with decisions based on clear, agreed-upon approaches and common sense. That means constantly rooting out complexity, and streamlining processes that get in the way of decision-making and execution. - AB InBev’s 2014 Annual Report"

"Ownership mindset Everything has to have an owner with authority and accountability. Debating is good, but in the end, someone has to decide. - Garantia’s 18 Commandments We are a company of owners. Owners take results personally. We are never completely satisfied with our results, which are the fuel of our company. Focus and zero complacency guarantee lasting competitive advantage. - AB InBev’s 10 Principles"