Gordon Biersch Case Study

Gordon Biersch Case Study

1. GB Success Factors:

People - Gordon and Biersch both are very savvy business people and have complementary skills. Gordon brings his skills as a professionally trained brewmaster, experience as a laborer with Budweiser, and an economics background. Biersch has many years experience in the restaurant and hospitality service industry. Both also have the desire to start their own venture and have written business plans for their unique concepts. Additionally, both partners get along very well and have very few problems communicating with one another.

Opportunity - It is the right time to start their microbrewery and fine restaurant as CA laws had not to long ago passed to allow the brewing and serving of beer in the same location. Also, their restaurant concept offered a point of differentiation from the other brewpubs out there as they planned to offer beyond pub style cuisine and more upscale offerings.

Context - At the time Gordon & Biersch were developing their concept, brewpubs accounted for 25% of the microbrew production and the microbrewery industry showed no signs of slowing. Plans of appealing to sophisticated target market with expendable income, which was very prominent and thriving demographic in the Bay Area.

Deal - Able to see successful opening of 4 locations 7 years time and initial openings proved more successful than their initial projections and surpassed industry standards.

GB Risks:

Lost key team member, Mark Tilling, in 1993. Tilling was devoted to the business and known as the “glue” to keep it all together, successfully running the day to day operations.

Decentralized philosophy and encourage personal initiative may be hard to manage as they continue to grow and expand outside of CA.

Change in organization structure in 1995 may cause some initial getting used to and stalls in new management and potential risk for changes in company culture.

The company has not yet invested in hiring top management...