The lessons I’ve learned with AB InBev

What made the difference to the biggest global brewery that I applied to write its complete biography

I’ve just launched the first book focused on AB InBev story, published by Portfolio-Penguin, a Penguin Group label. It’s an independent biography, the result of three years of research, more than 170 interviews, a tour around four countries, besides Brazil, - United States, Belgium, England and South Africa - and 14 cities altogether. It’s gratifying to come out of such deep diving and share my findings with the world.

After 30 years, the brewery that was born in Brazil and was outdated and inefficient became the biggest one one the planet, a management benchmark for a number of organizations. Its story can be divided into several phases. The main ones are: the acquisition of Brahma by three bankers, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira, in 1989; the merger with Antarctica, giving rise to AmBev, in 2000, at a time when rival companies getting together wasn’t a common practice in Brazilian business scene; the merger with Belgian Interbrew, which led to the creation of InBev, in 2004; the takeover of Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser’s owner, an American icon and, for a long time, the most-drunk beer in the world; and the purchase of South-African SABMiller, in 2016.

When I started my work, I didn’t know much about AB InBev and I had a negative personal judgment: a company that makes alcoholic beverages in large scale and try obsessively to find more ways to increase sales, ultimately cannot lead to anything good.

My reservations were the possible incentive for excessive drinking and the questionable quality of such an industrialized product. Nor attracted me the employee’s big motivation to work there: make a lot of money. I love to make money (who doesn't?), but I used to face it as a consequence - not a cause. Or, probably, I wouldn’t have chosen to be a journalist. However, I knew that my vision was shallow and inconsistent. I didn’t know much about the company or about its context. I traded the judgment for the curiosity when I accepted my editor’s suggestion. What has made AB Inbev one of the world’s most relevant, popular and controversial companies?

Since I’ve got closer to the company, that I studied in detail its way of working, many things have happened. 

I have met people from different areas, who made me grow professionally and personally. I’ve learned methods that shifted my way of working - and living. I’ve dissolved barriers and prejudices that I didn’t even know I had. I’ve increased the trust in my own capacity. And, mainly, I’ve felt that are no frontiers, considering all the people I spoke to and the places I went during my research. 

I’ve noticed that a big part of the criticism about the business that I formulate and heard made sense. The negative image the company has, specially in Brazil, didn’t come out of the blue. Its executives were forced to change behaviours in recent years.

There is still room for improvement, but that doesn’t exclude the company positive aspects that I now recognize the value.

Below, I share with you five lessons I’ve learned about - and with - AB InBev. They happen to be a powerful method to achieve any goal. If in their case the indicator that matters is beer sales, mine is a very different one, but I don’t know if it’s less ambitious. I applied all these lessons to write a balanced book, one that reconstitutes the facts in the most faithful way I knew how, and I hope that it might entertain, clarify, inspire and give every reader that extra energy.

1. Copy what has already been working with boldness and responsibility.

I’ve always heard - and found it in my initial research - about the method popularized by AB InBev owners, of copying what has already been working. They have been inspired by systems and process globally established. They created a culture based on constant search and diffusion of best practices. But the truth is that many companies do (or say that do) the same. Why for AB InBev this was so successful that became a benchmark?

Here is my conclusion: because they do not simply apply a model and wait for the results. Instead, they test and make changes to adjust the external truths to internal needs, which requires boldness. To do this, they take responsibility for the mistakes, that always happen, and for the constant adaptation. Just as with success. It’s not a coincidence that the first sheets and methods or programs developed inside the company were recognized by the names of its creators.

2. Constant plan, action and discipline.

Just as important as the plan is to check if the plan works. Just as important as checking if it works in practice is to fix what didn’t work (because nothing is perfect). Just as important as planning, testing and checking is to keep this circle active in the long run. Simple in theory, but in practice we are specialists in not having the time to think about the routine and evaluate what can be better. As the brewery has risen with this model, systemized and linked to practical incentives (as compensation), the attitude became a habit.

3. Passion with dexterity.

One of the most contagious characteristics of the people who currently work or worked in the past for AB InBev is the high energy. Intensity and passion were some of the adjectives I used over the last 3 years to define the feeling I had while interacting with them. Even the criticism came full of these attributes.

I relate this to a kind of essential motivation of AB InBev’s employees: the willingness to make things happen. The owners and executives in the company act like this, but with dexterity. They balance passion and flexibility, seduction and cunning. Thus, they convinced, for instance, representants of Belgian nobleness, Interbrew owners, who were used to make acquisition around the world for decades, that it would be worth it to join the Brazilians, merger their companies and share it almost equally - and let the new partners lead the business. Later, they seized the opportunity they had to make the world’s highest offer to a jewel of America, and that was actually not for sale.

4. Take high risks.

When one looks from outside the AB InBev empire it is hard to imagine everything that was risked to build it. Even they have combined luck with calculation, it was a big bet. Risks much higher than the people and companies, in general, are willing to take. For example, agree to give the company in guarantee if the banks didn’t finance their billion-dollar operation, carried out by people from an emerging country during the world’s biggest economic crisis. Jorge Paulo Lemann and the others lost their sleep, but accepted the challenge.

5. Ability to question.

The habit of making questions and to investigate is one of the most highlighted skills of AB InBev employees, according to colleagues, consultants, lawyers, analysts and others. About his interaction with Carlos Brito during the negotiation around Anheuser-Busch takeover, the lawyer Francis Aquila said: “He had so many questions, and not because he was doubting my words, but rather because he always wanted to learn, understand, take in as much information as possible prior to making his decision (...) He might be the wisest person in the room, however, what makes him so smart is that he recognizes what he doesn’t know.”.

The British financial analyst Trevor Stirling, one of the most respected professionals within the beverage industry, agrees. “I really respect their style. They are proud, in a way, because they know how far they’ve come. And yet there’s a genuine thirst for learning there (...) Normally, business people don’t like asking financial analysts anything, there’s a certain arrogance in the relationship. But not with them. They wanted to listen...”

Last year, Lemann called himself a “terrified dinosaur” when facing market changes, with the drop in global beer consumption, increased competition with microbreweries, new consumer demands and financial challenges. Implicit in Lemann’s quote is the need of reinventing the business. One more time. Will they do it?