Most of what we know about the inside workings of Mars Inc comes from one person: the journalist Joël Glenn Brenner. In the early 90s, Mars let her into the company to do a Washington Post Magazine piece, before regretting the decision and clamping down. Brenner went on to write a book about Hershey’s and Mars — still the best researched source on the company’s intertwined histories today.
It seems that for as long as corporations have existed, people have sought to figure out how to understand what’s going on in the business, in order to control it. Rose has another book titled — appropriately enough — ‘Business Charts’ … and here I am, 80 years later, learning the modern version of the same ideas through the Amazon Weekly Business Review.
Great to see this case! The Mars family used ROTA to reinvest constantly as a tool for continuous improvement. It also eschewed debt as it compromised its investment program. At another point in that book, it mentions how the Mars family managed to a lower profit margin because it didn’t take out dividends, which I found interesting. In the process, it likely lengthened its reinvestment runway, got more capital efficient and stay ahead of the competition.
YESSS — this case was very much inspired by your pointing this out to me. And thank you for adding these notes: I wasn’t sure how much to add to the case, and this bit of context probably matters:
My one, minor anecdote: shortly after reading the book I bought a few packs of M&Ms in Vietnam, and I was disappointed to find that they were — alas! — deformed. Something tells me Forrest wouldn’t have stood for that
