Pros
This once was a company that showed it cared about its employees. Benefits package and salary under the old AB was at the 90th percentile of the Fortune 100 Companies. Now, it’s been reduced to the 50th percentile of the Fortune 500 Companies. There once was money to send employees for training. And there used to be recognitions initiatives that were more significant than a 10 sec advertisement on AB-TV. There was once an incentive to stay with the company regarding growth and promotion opportunities. I used to say I’m going to retire from AB. The only positive now it that it is not widely known that this company is going the way of Schlitz Malt Liquor, and it still looks good on my resume.
Cons
They are still wasting a fortune doing things poorly, they have the worst ERP implementation in town and pay horribly, and therefore they can only get sub-par talent today. The ideology of reducing scheduled preventative maintenance and overhauls and running equipment until it fails is very short sited. This would be great if everything failed at once, but a production line doesn’t work that way. Things fail at different rates. This is why the production efficiencies have dropped so much. Not to mention the current massive exodus of tenured staff has left very little resource to those who stay. Since the buyout, I am TWICE forced to do my job, and my boss’s job without an increase in pay or title. They first offered an increase in 3 years of service and age to encourage retirements of employees that had elevated salaries. Now, they are at again, offering another increase in 5 years of service and age to reduce head count and salary cost regardless if the knowledge and experience is an asset. This last big move has left no experience in the Saint Louis corporate offices to assist the resident breweries. You are left to meet the frequencies that are in place without the manpower or the personal to help with solutions. Downsizing, consolidation, and cost cutting is the name of the game at the NEW AB. Who cares if the early liquidation of over 400 years of valued experience has falsely inflated profits for the shareholders. But you can only cut so much before the product is affected. Like I said Anheuser Busch is going the way of Schlitz Malt Liquor. Sadly, the American born and brewed company has died. It’s only a matter of time before it’s just another cheap "made in Taiwan" knockoff.
