Anheuser-Busch president Dave Peacock speaks: “The trick is not to disrupt the business”
A week before Christmas, Harry Schuhmacher, editor and publisher of Beer Business Daily, sat down to write a column, looking back on a week he called “the blackest in the history of Anheuser-Busch.” Never in the history of the U.S. beer industry, he wrote, had so many been laid off in such a short time. He estimated that approximately two-fifths of A-B’s St. Louis workforce, including contractors, had left the brewery.
“There is little doubt,” Schuhmacher wrote, “that A-B had lots of people, and perhaps more pointedly A-B had a culture of, if you’re going to do something, do it right. Some call it ‘going first class.’ Some call it ‘the A-B way.’ Some call it ‘overkill.’ … At A-B, you could be fired for not getting the job done, but you never got fired for using too many resources to get the job done.” It was a culture in which, if it was good to send one person to a meeting, it was even better to send five.
“The till was bottomless,” said Schuhmacher. But with InBev taking over and needing to repay billions of dollars in debt, the till “just got a bottom.” How would A-B respond to the new, belt-tightened regime? Would it lose its fifty-percent share of the U.S. market?
Schuhmacher soon heard from Dave Peacock, president of Anheuser-Busch, who wanted to respond. Excerpts from that interview with Beer Business Daily are below.
Dave: “I don’t think that having big cocktail shrimp at the distributor conference is going to help us gain share. We’re focused on cutting things that don’t help us gain share and reinvesting those dollars into the activities that help us gain share. Some of the money we save will go to the bottom line, but some will be reinvested. The idea is that we should test which activities give us the best yield, and which activities don’t, and reinvest heavily against what works. We are not going to walk away from marketing, we are not going to walk away from sports sponsorships, we won’t walk away from the quality of our product, and we won’t walk away from constantly communicating with our distributors.”
Dave on sharing ideas with InBev: “We have shared a lot of ideas, and they have developed a lot of best practices that can enhance and complement what we’re doing here. And we have competencies and skills here that can help what they do in other parts of the world. In the short term, we are focused on keeping our momentum in the marketplace. We don’t want to see that sacrificed. Right now, I don’t know a lot of things about the rest of the company - there is a lot for us to learn. I’m joining a best practice sharing team from A-B on a trip to Brazil in the first week of January…And many people from the global company will be coming to St. Louis at the end of January, early February. But the trick is to not disrupt the business as we bring together the best of what we both do.”
(4 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)
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Jeremiah McWilliams is a native Virginian who came to the Post-Dispatch in early 2007 to cover beer and other consumer products. He previously covered manufacturing for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Va. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. 
I HEARD that AB/ INBEV was goin to take the brewing cycle from 18 day to 8 days. Is that true
Brito and his arrogant team was after one thing. The Budweiser name. Who cares about the heritage or the quality. Think made in China is bad. Just wait to see made by InBev. The saddest thing is that they will attach the great A-B name to the low quality InBev products. Hopefully real Americans will realize this and let Bud become the next Schlitz. If you don’t understand, look into the history of the Schlitz quality. With this management style, ten years from now Bud will be nothing but history.
The business has been disrupted. It’s extremely difficult to get things done because so many people are gone, and in a lot of cases we still haven’t figured out who outside of our own areas is still with the company. We have very little project management left and many people are no longer reporting to the same management and no longer doing the same jobs we did before. While most of us who still have jobs are grateful for that fact, I doubt anyone is buying the promises that there won’t be more layoffs later this year. It seems that our new leaders are trying to keep us unsettled. It started with the swift and pointed demolition of our lavish executive offices on the 9th floor and was driven home by the ruthless gutting of our white collar workforce a week before Christmas. Anyone who still thinks it’s business as usual is a fool. InBev wants to make sure we know that this wasn’t a merger. We were purchased - Brito said as much and nothing he does will come as a surprise to me.
To Carlos Prito and the no good Busch family. Mainly Busch the 3rd and the 4th. Go to hell , you sold AB out, just for the $$$$$$$$$$$$. SO AGAIN I SAY GO TO HELL AND DROP DEAD.
This is just so sad. For the next 50 years, they’ll be teaching this as a case study in business schools as how not to slash and burn when you aquire. I have been following this because of my interest in the theme parks. I can’t tell you how many people got turned on to new and exciting products by the company through their marketing programs at the SW and BG parks. And now, as of Jan 31, no more. The reason? AB-Inbev wanted to charge BEC WHOLESALE for the samples that they were giving away and using at the Brewmasters Club. Carlos Brito was SOOOO concerned about the heritage and history of this company… and theme parks (beer gardens) were a big part of that dating all the way back to Adolphus. The end of beer samples at the current parks dates back 50 years to when Gussie started the garden at the Tampa Brewery.
Where has Brito been since he swept in and lied to everybody and bought the Busch’s silence? I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that for a company that’s mantra has been “Making Friends is our Business” — they’ve abandoned that.
I wonder how Peacock is going to like that 14-hour plane ride in coach? Then again, they could take a play out of the Stella Artois playbook and ride the train. I am sure the distributors are thrilled about the shrimp comment.
I guess this
Peacock might be flying coach which is pretty funny, but Brito and Edmund what’s his name will be flying on their brand new, tricked out top of the line Gulf Stream, with a custom interior from Midcoast Aviation. Brito on coach? I don’t think so.
Brito showed up the first day and started walking the halls at One Busch Place. He thinks everyone thought he was some big hero but the truth is everyone hated him except Peacock and those at the top who wanted to save themselves. He is a skinny runt fraud and he will run this company in to the ground. He mandates that everyone work at one big table and give up their offices. Only problem is that he just figured out it costs money to tear out offices. He destroyed the elegant and historical 9th floor. He also says everyone must fly coach. How come the news media doesn’t check out how he flies in to this country? BrewBLog do some real news reporting instead of reporting just what AB PR group feeds you to say.
Anybody have some concrete evidence that I can track the Brito Jet purchase to? email me at tlund@me.com
Dave Peacock says: “we won’t walk away from the quality of our product”
And yet Corporate Quality Assurance gets cut from 54 to 8 people?
And DEEP Brewery Quality Department cuts are coming soon…
And suppliers not getting paid for 120 days…
So he’s not walking away from quality… but it sure sounds like quality is walking away…
This will merger will be as bad as Miler/Coors debacle. I am sad that 2/5 of the employees are already gone. This shedding will continue, Gussie is rollng in his grave.