100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • 197How do you instill a bold, adventurous approach in employees? The
most successful businesses are often those that are prepared to go
further and take careful, calculated risks. This spirit of audacity can
be developed, with insightful leadership.
The idea
“As South Africans, we weren’t really frightened of emerging
markets compared to the things that we were going through
at home,” commented Graham Mackay, SABMiller’s chief
executive. Diffi cult trading and environmental conditions instilled
determination and resilience in managers at SABMiller, one of the
world’s largest brewers. Having built SAB in their domestic market,
they were keen to compete and succeed abroad following the end of
apartheid. They were ingenious, fl exible, determined, and prepared
not to follow convention. For example, SAB entered markets that (in
the mid-1990s) were unfashionable, in Latin America, China, and
Central Europe. Although these developing economies represent
attractive growth markets now, the fact that SAB had a culture of
taking on challenges meant that it could go there fi rst and achieve
considerable success.
SABMiller has a bold approach to business and has become a global
giant in little over ten years.
In practice
-^ Find the dangerous edge. This is the point where the greatest risks
lie. Understanding where this point is will increase confi dence