Eureka Case 30 min Undergrad

Las Cuatro Puertas

You are Emiliano Pacheco-Roldán, 38, third generation at Mezcal Crisóforo, a 40-year-old family mezcal house in Santiago Matatlán, Oaxaca. You came home with an MBA to run the commercial side. Now you have to write the three-year plan — and decide what the firm is actually betting on.

The situation

Mezcal Crisóforo was founded in 1984 by your grandfather, the maestro mezcalero whose name is on the label. It is now a respected craft house — €6.0M in revenue, 41% gross margin, exporting to the United States and Europe. Your uncle, Tío Genaro, is the maestro now. The brand is loved. The family is proud.

But craft mezcal has become a category. A private-equity-backed group has launched two heritage-styled brands in eighteen months; tequila money is buying palenques. The board of the family council wants a three-year plan, and it must be anchored on one thing: the resource that a competitor with money cannot take away. You have four candidates — the brand and origin story, the wild-agave grower network, the maestro's craft, and the export distribution network — and a strong family conviction that the answer is obvious.

Your job in this case: run all four candidate resources through the VRIO test — Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organized — model what happens to the firm depending on which resource the plan anchors on, and recommend the anchor to the family council.

The decision

What does the plan anchor on?

  • A · Anchor on the brand
  • B · Anchor on the supply system
  • C · Anchor on distribution and scale

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