Brl Hardy
BRL Hardy: Globalizing an Australian Wine Company
What are the organizational and management challenges surrounding BRL’s international expansion? What would you propose to overcome these?
The main challenge surrounding BRL’s international expansion was its merger with Hardy. Both companies were struggling financially and needed the skills of each other’s company to be successful internationally. Organization challenges dealt with how both companies were running their respected business. It’s hard to combine two completely different companies and find a happy medium. Especially, when you have already established how things will be run in your company and you are forced to change them. To create a successful merge of BRL and Hardy, they had to both make sacrifices to better the overall company. The strategy was to protect the company’s share of bulk cask business but concentrate on branded bottle sales for growth. To fulfil this strategy, management also had to undergo many changes. A new top executive team was chosen with the majority of top jobs coming from BRL. This management team was to implement the necessary retrenchments and position them for growth. It was tough for both sides to give way and transform into a management team; many of people from Hardy felt they were outsiders and weren’t allowed into important meetings, while many from BRL felt that they needed to earn their spot again even though they had proved themselves many times before. Both sides of management had to earn their stripes to continue in the merged company. New managers had to be willing to challenge the status quo, accept responsibility for the outcome of decisions that were delegated, and to admit when they had made a mistake. After a year of BRL Hardy many managers felt more comfortable and had earned their rightful spot. Results from the merge were very impressive and both bottle market share and profitability increased significantly in the first two years of
What are the organizational and management challenges surrounding BRL’s international expansion? What would you propose to overcome these?
The main challenge surrounding BRL’s international expansion was its merger with Hardy. Both companies were struggling financially and needed the skills of each other’s company to be successful internationally. Organization challenges dealt with how both companies were running their respected business. It’s hard to combine two completely different companies and find a happy medium. Especially, when you have already established how things will be run in your company and you are forced to change them. To create a successful merge of BRL and Hardy, they had to both make sacrifices to better the overall company. The strategy was to protect the company’s share of bulk cask business but concentrate on branded bottle sales for growth. To fulfil this strategy, management also had to undergo many changes. A new top executive team was chosen with the majority of top jobs coming from BRL. This management team was to implement the necessary retrenchments and position them for growth. It was tough for both sides to give way and transform into a management team; many of people from Hardy felt they were outsiders and weren’t allowed into important meetings, while many from BRL felt that they needed to earn their spot again even though they had proved themselves many times before. Both sides of management had to earn their stripes to continue in the merged company. New managers had to be willing to challenge the status quo, accept responsibility for the outcome of decisions that were delegated, and to admit when they had made a mistake. After a year of BRL Hardy many managers felt more comfortable and had earned their rightful spot. Results from the merge were very impressive and both bottle market share and profitability increased significantly in the first two years of