Michele Ferrero Case Study

Michele Ferrero was born on 26 April 1925 in Dogliani, and passed away in February 2015 at age 89. Michele Ferrero was an Italian entrepreneur that owned the chocolate manufacture Ferrero SpA. He turned a little bakery shop to an International Company by being the first Italian entrepreneur after World War II to open production sites and offices abroad in the confectionary sector. Before his dead, he was the richest person in Italy, and 20th richest person in the World. (Forbes 2011)
Michele Ferrero’s father Pietro has opened a chocolate laboratory to supply his wife’s small cafe in Alba during World War II. Then, Pietro Ferrero and his wife Piera, transformed a pastry shop into a factory. It was the first step of the Ferrero Group’s success.
At the beginning of 1957, Michele Ferrero targeted to overseas markets while developing new brands and products. The following decades they achieved to grow across Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. Ferrero Group products also include Kinder, Ferrero Rocher and Tic-Tac. For Ferrero group, hazelnuts are the key point and they get hazelnuts from Turkey but Nutella gets its cocoa from Nigeria, its sugar from Brazil and its palm oil from Malaysia.
The first reason for Michele Ferrero’s success is his creative mind. He had original and fresh ideas about the chocolate recipes and sometimes he made small improvements upon already existing ideas. He created new products with unique ideas and he revolutionized the food habits of millions of people across the world. He insisted that the company should "always do something different from the others" and that nothing should be rushed - he recognised good things take time. (The Economist, 2015)
Another reason of success is risk tolerance, because rewards rarely come without risks. He changed the recipes and he started to make business abroad by taking a huge risk. Although he never took a risk without lots of planning. He thought that planning is vital to starting and running a successful
Then Pietro Ferrero died in 2011, now Giovanni Ferrero is on the top of the Ferrero Group. I believe the success of the firm will continue for a long time because Giovanni Ferrero is quite experienced. Giovanni says he will continue to run the family business successfully to reach goals that are even more ambiguous and he ensures that the company inspiration and motivation will remain to be strong as always. And he adds ‘Tomorrow, just as yesterday will be based on solid family values.’.
The major driving force of Michele Ferrero is obviously Nutella. People became crazy about the Nutella immediately. At the beginning, it was solid that you could cut by a knife but Michele Ferrero decided to transform into a cream and it reached today. Thanks to his efforts, Michele Ferrero easily became the Italy’s richest man worth more than 25 billion dollars. Nutella remains its best seller. One jar is sold in every 2.5 seconds.
Another driving force of Michele Ferrero is his imagination and creativity. In addition, he was willing to take initiative. He was able to develop new ideas and news ways to solve problems and he was also able to apply those ideas and