Call for change
Remaking merriment
Anheuser-Busch InBev SA (AB InBev)
is the largest brewer in the world, wielding a portfolio of more than 500 brands that
includes consumer favorites Budweiser, Corona, Brahma, Cass, Eagle Lager and Stella
Artois.
In 2015, the AB InBev team saw a
wave of change coming to the industry. Consumers wanted new and different things from
their beverages, revealing a world of whitespace opportunities. To seize those, AB InBev
knew it needed to change its approach and created ZX Ventures, a global investment and
innovation group. The mandate was to nurture, support and grow the products and services
of tomorrow.
When pushed to think beyond beer to
spark exponential growth, ZX Ventures chose to partner with Accenture Song. Pedro
Earp—who created ZX and now serves as the Chief ZX Ventures and Marketing Officer for AB
InBev—says that the initial work was about reframing the opportunity.
"We realized that we’re
actually in the business of bringing people together. Accenture Song helped us see
that concept. To go from being a beer company to being in ‘the business of bringing
people together’ freed us up to think about different ways of solving the consumer
problem."
– PEDRO
EARP, Chief ZX Ventures and Marketing Officer for AB InBev
When tech meets human ingenuity
New products, underserved audiences
With this inspiring vision in hand
and a fast-growing team of innovators to realize it, Bionic and the ZX team partnered to
discover growth Opportunity Areas (OAs) beyond beer (including non-obvious consumer
problems like health and wellness and product experiences), then generated a roster of
potential solutions in those OAs for the teams to pursue. Bionic entrepreneurs coached
the ZX teams to run quick and cheap experiments to test whether any of those solutions
had legs, and to determine which ones they should invest more time and money into before
scaling the ideas.
With input from Bionic, ZX
established a variety of revolutionary product domains, including casual wine (e.g. Babe
Wine) and canned cocktails (e.g. Cutwater Spirits). Now confident in its ability to
scope promising opportunities, ZX Ventures went on to acquire ecommerce craft beer
purveyor Beer Hawk and other ecommerce platforms. It made early investments in advanced
technology solutions like Pensa Systems, which measures out-of-stock and shelf
compliance using drone, AI and ML technology. As the team considered possible additions
to its inorganic portfolio of bets, its members always considered how the larger
company’s capabilities and know-how might support and amplify startups’ early successes.
A valuable difference
Profits from diversified growth
In just a few short years, AB
InBev’s growth-obsessed team has reached far beyond craft brews and beer-centric
experiences. Since its launch in 2015, ZX Ventures has gone from $0 to more than $1
billion in revenue.
Much of that revenue growth has
come from the sheer breadth of the company’s portfolio. Today, ZX Ventures builds, grows
and invests in businesses across industries—from consumer products to technology and
everything in between. Its success offers hard evidence that building a portfolio filled
with dozens of bets is a sound and viable strategy. With a fleet of growth-minded teams
eager to uncover and respond to fast-changing consumer needs, AB InBev is now focused on
the future and poised for even more growth.
As Earp puts it, “Before I get
involved with a category or company, I ask, ‘Am I going to be able to make it grow
faster and better? What is my platform and what assets can I bring to bear? If I really
don’t have any proprietary gifts that can help the category or company, then why get
involved? We like to be in spaces where we can have a disproportionate impact.”
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