Revolutionary Brewing Case Study:

Melvin Johnson is a successful commercial farmer. He has taken his family farm and turned
it into a regional supplier of food stuffs and other agricultural products. After a recent trip to
Germany, Melvin became fascinated with the breweries and hopyards of Europe. He has
decided to open up an establishment in his hometown of Lewisburg, West Virginia where a
local brewery, Jo's Brewery, has been doing well for several years. Melvin believes that he
can use his farming knowledge and resources to give his brewery, Revolutionary Brewing, a
competitive advantage over Jo's Brewery by offering beers made entirely from local
ingredients. For his brewery to be successful, he is dependent on his strategic plan proving
sustainable. He has learned that massive amounts of hops can be grown relatively easy
considering he already possesses the land, man power, and equipment to establish a hopyard.
He can also easily convert some of his less profitable farming ventures to grow grains and
other key beer ingredients. However, Melvin has been a farmer all of his life, and he has very
little experience working in the hospitality industry, much less a brewery. He plans to hire
qualified individuals to run the day-to-day operations of the brewery as well as an
experienced brewer. He is worried though that his inexperience could cause him to make
poor choices and his brewery and hopyard might fail due to poor staffing. He plans to
research the field to the best of his ability so that he can make informed decisions. Although
he is not college educated and possesses few computer skills, he does have an assistant that
can gather relevant material for him to review. He plans to locate an acceptable location
downtown, make the necessary renovations over the next fiscal year and to open the brewery
sometime next year. By that time, his hopyard should have produced a full crop that will
allow him to market his beers as "local".

In an academic essay format, answer the following questions:

1. What are Melvin Johnson's strengths as an entrepreneur?

- Passion, creativity: When working with passion, work efficiency is always higher.
Johnson shows that he is a person full of passion and enthusiasm in his work. In addition,
the ability to be creative with new and breakthrough ideas is also one of his strengths.

- Production costs and prices: available land, man power, and equipment to produce raw
materials in large quantities, proactively collecting these materials, saving production
costs. On that basis, successfully applied the strategy of building a production model on
the principle of long-term and sustainability.

- Understanding strengths and weaknesses: Johnson knows himself very well. From there,
plan to promote the strengths and find solutions to overcome the weaknesses. This is
shown by his confidence and courage to come up with preliminary ideas and plans to start
a new business. Along with that is hiring experts with high expertise in each field to work
for him.

2. What are Johnson's weaknesses as an entrepreneur?

- Johnson himself is a successful agriculturist but has no experience in business, especially

breweries.
- Johnson's business is so new, his business ideas are only in theory. In practice, they will
probably face many challenges when deployed. Hiring leadership personnel is also a
difficult problem for Johnson to ensure that qualified people are recruited.

- Market coverage is not available, the brand Revolution Brewing is completely new.
Compared to Jo's Brewery – a direct competitor, Revolution Brewing has no market
share.

3. What are the opportunities for Johnson and Revolutionary Brewing?

- Producing products derived from nature is becoming a trend of sustainable and stable
development and brings high economic value. Natural organic products have many
benefits: Better taste, better nutritional content; Good, safe for health; Environmental
friendliness; Reduce costs incurred.

- Hiring local labor makes Revolution Brewing favorable in establishing good relationships
with local people and authorities, building a good image for its business.

- Culture or customs are values that are ingrained in the subconscious of local people.
Johnson is already a successful farmer in the area, so he has the advantage of
understanding the people and culture there. As a result, it is possible to come up with new
business ideas, develop new products that meet the insight of a large number of
customers.

- The consumer market for beer is often potential because it is a popular commodity with
great demand.

4. What threats must Johnson overcome to be successful?

- Revolution Brewing is a new brand, so it will certainly face stiff competition from its
predecessors, especially Jo's Brewery – another local beer brand that has been doing well
for several years.

- With a production model based entirely on agriculture, environmental factors will greatly
affect the performance of a business like Johnson's company since problems of
cultivation techniques, pests, and natural disasters can happen at any time.

5. What recommendations would you give Johnson if he hired you as a consulting

analyst?
In my opinion, the interesting uniqueness that brings Revolution Brewing comes from
Johnson's business idea. That's it: to come up with a beer made entirely from local
ingredients. This opens up promising business opportunities. From here, it can develop into a
brand story and find a unique business advantage for Revolution Brewing.

5.1 Brand story

In today's competitive market, a good story helps a business stand out. Unlike traditional
advertising, to tell the story of a brand must inspire an emotional reaction.
Some ideas can consider to develop into the Revolution Brewing brand story as follows:

5.1.1 Power
- The power of belief: belief in the power of life, the constant rebirth of plants. This is the
direction of Revolution Brewing to always be creative and constantly develop to create
truly valuable products.
- The power of organic nature: Ensuring effective safety in each formula; Focusing on
organic farming; Reducing environmentally harmful materials; Using environmentally
friendly packaging.

5.1.1 Love
- Love for nature: 100% active ingredients developed by Revolution Brewing with plant
extracts; Refuse to use endangered species.

- Love for the homeland: Revolution Brewing's farms and brewery are located in his
hometown of Lewisburg, West Virginia. The establishment and development of the
brewery in the home land will bring benefits to those in the same land as Johnson,
opening up stable job opportunities for local people.

- Love with local culture: The culture of drinking beer and choosing a beer is not simply an
action, but it is elevated to the beauty of each person, each region, and each country. It
exudes the personality, confidence, elegance of a person. The beer brand Revolution
Brewing opens a new trend and will become a symbol of Lewisburg beer culture, as well
as a pride for the people and the land there.

5.2 Competitive advantage

The key factor to determine the success of a business is competitive advantage. Determining
competitive advantages, businesses will clearly understand what their strengths are, operating
trends to become more outstanding than competitors in the same field.
- Competitive advantage in price: Johnson already owns the land, manpower, and
production equipment. This helps your business to reduce the cost of premises, labor and
production costs. Alternatively, he could easily convert some of his less profitable
farming ventures into growing grain and brewing ingredients. As a result, offering
products at a lower price than competitors.

- USP (unique selling point) of products: A new but unique product has the advantage of
attracting great interest from customers. If the competitive advantage in price is easily lost
when there are other competitors with better prices, but the product difference brings
long-term value to the business.