Global Sourcing at Anheuser-Busch InBev: Tapping (Beer) into the Chinese Supplier Market

This case concerns the difficulties of global sourcing for InBev, an international brewery with branches in six geographical zones. In 2006, Pascal Baltussen came to China to set up the company’s international procurement office and had it up and running by the end of the year. Not only were risks such as delivery delays and rising costs constantly lurking, but in 2010 his company, Brazilian-Belgian brewer InBev, acquired the almost equally large U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch to form the world’s largest brewer, AB InBev. This posed further complications. How could Baltussen now successfully roll out his sourcing vision for China and manage internal and external challenges?