Over the coming weeks I intend to reacquaint you folks with what I’m been up to in terms of research over the past couple of years (yes, the blog had been moribund for that long!).
One project I commenced while overseas earlier this year looks at the nature of collaboration in the global craft beer scene. Here’s a blog post over at a beer site where I talk through our initial findings.
Well, it certainly has been a long time between drinks. The last time I blogged I was seeking participants in a research project looking at Australia’s international businesswomen.
The outcome of the research has now hit the public arena. Here’s a lengthy discussion of our key findings at the Conversation website.
And you can download our fancy report called Australia’s Underestimated Resource:Women Doing Business Globally is available for free download at the Women in Global Business website.
Tell your friends!
Update: the report is also now downloadable from my research paper site.
I was in the process of drafting a post about the recently announced Lion Nathan/Kirin takeover of Little World (the folks who brew Little Creatures and White Rabbit), but my little brother meet me to it. So head to his always entertaining and insightful blog and read about it: It’s a Little World after all…
… OK, now that you’re back, I would add that this was a nice “long play” by Lion Nathan/Kirin given they had a ‘blocking’ shareholding in this growing firm from the outset (20% on formation, 35% since the IPO in 2005). This meant no rival brewer (i.e. Fosters, Coca Cola Amatil or Coopers) was going to get hold of this prospect without Lion getting a ‘right of reply’.
It was a very sensible ‘option’ to have taken on what has turned out to the most successful craftbrewer in Australia in terms of growth and brand awareness (Little World pitched themselves as the 5th biggest Aussie brewer in this document).
Lion does have a history with acquisitions of microbrewers, taking over Hahn back in 1993 (see here for a decent description of that move), which has evolved into James Squire.
And, Lion Nathan failed in a bid for Coopers a few years ago.
I agree with Leon that the biggest ‘kick’ that’ll come from this acquisition will be much greater reach for Little Creatures beers. I would not be surprised to see the brand become a real challenger to Coopers in the medium-term (and wallop SAB Miller’s/Matilda Bay’s Fat Yak along the way).
And, meanwhile,the Casella/Yellowtail beer (that I mentioned back here) is finally on the shelves, and the winemakers are talking very ambitiously (their brewery reportedly has the capacity to service 7% of the Aussie market – that’s more than Coopers!).
Maybe even macro-brewing might get interesting in Australia in the coming couple of years.
I had a brief email exchange with a journalism student last week, and I thought I would share my views with you (my verrrrry patient readers).
The background is that market research had been recently released indicating 72% of Australians don’t trust Coles or Woolworths and these levels of distrust have gone up since last year.
Q. How do you think Woolworths are faring in the Retail sector/Stock market?
Me: Woolworths had been a darling of the stockmarket until quite recently. Their main rival, Coles Myer performed poorly for many years, and Woolworths was much quicker in adopting and adapting ‘best practice’ from offshore (most notably through a close alliance with Wal-Mart). Much of these practices are on the warehousing/stock management side of things. Woolworths grew faster than Coles Myer and had better margins. It made some strong moves in the non-supermarket space – with alcohol sales being particularly strong.
The split up of Coles Myer and the acquisition of the non-Department business by Wesfarmers has negatively affected Woolworths. The revamp of both the Coles supermarket business and K-Mart variety stores have put pressure on Woolworths’ (and Big W’s) margins and curbed their growth. At the same time, Woolworths has been burnt by the poor performance of the Dick Smith business, and the large investments in a rival to Wesfarmers’ Bunnings are a long way from paying off.
Q. What implications might these figures of the survey have for the company and it’s competitors?
Me: As for the distrust aspect, this is far from surprising. The supermarket sector in Australia is one of the most concentrated in the world. The attempts by both Coles and Woolworths to further squeeze suppliers (as part of the drive to improve margins) have coincided with a period of perceived price inflation (although I’m not convinced the latter is actually occurring).
Consumers have apparently resigned themselves to the idea that these two duopolists are not really competing too hard. Stories of struggling suppliers seem to have fuelled this animosity.
But like the big banks, I’m not sure customer dissatisfaction will genuinely translate into consumer action. There is a strong tendency to ‘stick around’ while grumbling. Any incursion by Aldi (or to a much lesser extent Costco) is unlikely to have a big impact given the sheer weight of numbers (in terms of stores and ease of accessibility).
What do you lot think?
While I’ve been criminally quiet around here lately, two of my colleagues (one a coauthor, one my PhD Student) have been busy penning a mighty fine teaching case about the Aussie endeavours of German supermarket giant Aldi.
For a lengthy discussion of Tom Osegowitsch and Markus Goelz’s Aldi Australia case see here.
Of course, I’ve been blabbering on about said mob for ages (back when I used to blog!), although mainly in the US context (weirdly):
International BS Blog 
