Strategic Management Anaylsis

Meredith Beer

Strategic Management Anaylsis

Anheuser-Busch

Introduction

In the early 1800’s many German people were coming the United States, to Saint Louis. This is the time when breweries started booming, but the mid 1800’s there were about 50 breweries in the area. This is where the company Anheuser-Busch came about. Today, Anheuser-Busch (A-B) controls about 47.9% of the beer industry market. With over 600 independent wholesalers, and employees in over 23 countries, A-B is a beer brewing power house. A-B has over 116,00 employees worldwide, all which hold major stake in the company. Along with the customers, investors, community and government; these stakeholders play an important role in the success of A-B. Without the success of A-B there would not be as many employees all over the world. A-B plays an important roll in the community, showing that they care about the hardships people go through, since 1997 A-B has donated of $490 million to charitable organizations, since 1988 A-B has provided more than 71 million cans of water to people impacted by natural disasters and over the past 3 decades A-B has spent over $930 million for national advertising campaigns promoting responsible drinking. A-B does a good job of keeping all of their stakeholders comfortable and content with the business, through the good times and the bad. Through further analysis I shall go through how A-B keeps their stakeholders in a good position (History, 2013).

External General Factors

In A-B’s annual report they have outlined quite a few risks that could adversely affect their business. Some of these risks come from within, while others come from the external forces. In this sections I will be focusing on the external factors that could affect their business.

One external force that could adversely affect A-B is if something bad happened in the public eye with regards to the product that the produce. Being in the beer industry, this is a very plausible risk if people do not drink responsibly. If someone were to get seriously injured, or die from drinking too much of their product their sales would take a huge hit from that event. This also ties in with publicity/media and how the public views A-B. Alcoholic beverages come with a somewhat bad stigma in the public eye and no matter how much of a powerhouse A-B is in the beer industry, they still produce over 200 types of alcoholic beverages. They have to keep a good standing reputation in the community in order to be able to continue to grow (Annual Report, 2011).

A second force is the government. This is where restrictions are put on these types of companies, especially in the marketing/advertising section. Many styles of advertising alcohol