WORD TO THE WISE
  Sam Holloway  
President,
Co-Founder
Greetings!
HOW BEST TO PREPARE FOR POTENTIAL IMPACTS FROM THE COVID-19 VIRUS
We are now operating our businesses in uncertain times. The borders to Italy were closed yesterday. What can your brewery or taproom do to prepare for a slowdown or worse, a state of emergency where people stay home and stop visiting your taprooms? I'm not one to be alarmist in my advice, but I think it is wise for the members of this community to be talking about the current situation. I've created a forum thread (members only) to allow a discussion and brainstorming of ideas.

Some research in my home state of Oregon produced an encouraging option - delivering beer directly to consumers. While I had never considered this beyond a partnership with GrubHub or another food delivery service, it appears others have thought of this and it may provide your brewery an option to survive a slowdown related to COVID-19. I encourage each of our members to explore all options in their region, keep an open mind, and share your solutions on our forum.
NEW WHITE PAPER - HOW VALUABLE (REALLY) ARE YOUR CURRENT INTERNAL RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES?
What are your brewery's internal resources and capabilities really worth? Do they simply make great beer or do they actually provide a basis for sustainable competitive advantages? How valuable is your brand, really? Do customers think of your valuable and rare resources as strongly as you do, or do you mostly hope people show up because they have in the past? Hope is not a strategy. Today we introduce a new white paper that allows you to go beyond hope and create a much deeper understanding of how and why you will win in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Operationalizing Resource-Based Strategy: Variables, Measures, and VHRIO Scoring Rules (members only) is a methodology we developed for our members based on organizing a firm's strategy around its Valuable, Rare, and hard to Imitate resources and capabilities. Our scoring system improves the original theory developed in 1991 by professor Jay Barney, the Resource-Based View (RBV). The RBV is a theory of how and why firms win, which resources they have that work, and which resources they need to acquire if the definition of winning changes.This white paper is a bit of a beast - if you don't have time to dig in we suggest this is a perfect opportunity for an intern or young manager in your firm to make their mark. Give them an hour to read through our methodology, then give them a clipboard and a week's time to do an audit of your current resources and capabilities. We are confident you and your team will see your brewery in a completely new light - one aimed at winning in which ever markets you enter.
LATEST UPLOADS
New Forum Thread:

New White Paper:
(Members only)

Existing White Paper:
(Publicly Available)
WHAT'S BREWING
DECISION MAKING IN UNCERTAIN ENVIRONMENTS - FORGET ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS PLAN

As many of you know, I've spent years studying how expert entrepreneurs make decisions in highly uncertain environments. Normally this is in the context of new market creation, but I think it is good for us to review how to make decisions when the future is 'unknowable' considering the current COVID-19 situation. Here's a white paper we published on the difference between decision making under certainty and decision making under extreme uncertainty (publicly available).
FEATURED MEMBER OF THE MONTH
Professor Andre Sammartino
CAS Member Expert

University of Melbourne
My trip to Australia would not be possible without a lot of hard work from my friend and fellow beer scholar, Andre Sammartino. Andre and I met several years ago and in 2019 we finally found ways to work together and, most important, drink craft beer together. In 2019, we presented our research in Pilsen, Czechia at the Beeronomics Society Conference and also in Copenhagen at the Academy of International Business annual meeting. Now, in 2020 we will be meeting again in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia as we sample craft beers and interview scholars and business owners about their plans and hopes for the future.

CAS Members can find Andre's expertise all over our website in blog posts and forum comments. His work is also recognized in the 2017 Book: Economic Perspectives on Beer. Andre wrote the Australia Chapter: Craft Brewing in Australia, 1979 to 2015. Can't get enough? Check out his page on researchgate.net where he has over 40 research items and over 11,000 reads. Thank you, Andre for all you do for this community!
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