Grupo Bacardi De Mexico, S.A

33 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2008

See all articles by Lynn A. Isabella

Lynn A. Isabella

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Ted Forbes

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Abstract

This case traces the evolution of Bacardi Limited's Mexican operation from its inception in the 1930s to its current team-management structure. The case provides an opportunity to examine the growth and maturation of an entrepreneurial organization. It also portrays a variety of managerial styles and structures, affording a discussion of their appropriateness for the competitive environment in each era of the company's life. By extension, students and executives find this case a particularly useful vehicle for exploring and questioning their own managerial styles.

Excerpt

UVA-OB-0420

GRUPO BACARDI DE MEXICO, S.A.

The cold, blue eyes of Pepin Bosch stared down from the portrait on the wall of the boardroom. Bosch's gaze fell directly on Isaac Chertorivski, executive president of Bacardi y Cia, and his management team as they concluded their annual review of Grupo Bacardi's successes. It had been a good meeting, for 1991 had been yet another exceptional year. In this boardroom whose walls were lined with a connoisseur's collection of Mexican art, Chertorivski felt the weight of four generations of management: Don Facundo Bacardi y Maso, who founded the company; Pepin Bosch, who had set the course for Bacardi Mexico 60 years earlier; Ernesto Robles-Leon, the patrician dictator whose tenure had been marked by extremes of success and failure; and Juan Grau, the brilliant engineer whose strategy, management philosophy, and personal charisma had led to a rebirth of the operation.

Mexico had been one of the first foreign markets for Cuban-born Bacardi, and the site of many valuable lessons in managing the growth of the line of rum products invented by Don Facundo in 1862. The Mexican corporate headquarters, designed by the prominent Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1956, was one of Pepin Bosch's many monuments to his global strategy, a strategy that had increased the wealth of the family shareholders and had made BACARDI® rum the number-one-selling spirit in the world.

As he considered the experiences of his predecessors, Chertorivski was faced with the challenges of how to manage success and how to use the new management team structure to meet the opportunities and risks of the future. He warned the team, “We have fought our way to the top, yet we must be wary of complacency and arrogance. Do you know the saying ‘Establo de vacas contentas'? I will never tolerate this.”

The Bacardi Heritage

. . .

Keywords: international business, leadership, management development, managerial style, organizational change, development, nontraditional business, international, diversity

Suggested Citation

Isabella, Lynn A. and Forbes, Ted, Grupo Bacardi De Mexico, S.A. Darden Case No. UVA-OB-0420, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1281227 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1281227

Lynn A. Isabella (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States
434-924-4818 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty/isabella.htm

Ted Forbes

affiliation not provided to SSRN

No Address Available

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