Uncle Ben's Case

From its humble beginnings in the kitchen of Frank C. Mars in Tacoma, Washington, to a multi-billion dollar global company with products and brands ranging from Uncle Ben's to Royal Canin pet foods Mars has always been a family owned and operated business.

As one of the largest privately owned corporations in the world Mars Inc. has the unique quality of being not only a family owned and operated company, governed by a board of directors comprised of family members, but also employing a bureaucratic structure, Global Management Team, to maintain order and drive efficiency. The mission of Mars Inc. is as follows

"The Five Principles of Mars have kept us true to ourselves and to our commitment to treat others in ways that are consistent with those values. Having stood the test of time, these principles will continue, keeping us free to move quickly and plan for the future. Quality - The consumer is our boss, quality is our work and value for money is our goal. Responsibility - As individuals, we demand total responsibility from ourselves; as Associates, we support the responsibilities of others. Mutuality - A mutual benefit is a shared benefit; a shared benefit will endure. Efficiency - We use resources to the full, waste nothing and do only what we can do best. Freedom - We need freedom to shape our future; we need profit to remain free. Our objective as a company is to create a mutuality of benefits for all of our stakeholders through our operations. We strive to do this by putting our Principles into action every day to make a difference to people and the planet through our performance."

I believe that Mars' greatest strength does lie in its Principles, the pillars of our company, they tie us together, govern us with purpose and definition while allowing for a certain level of freedom. The above principles outline how we should be conducting business, forming mutual beneficial relationships with suppliers as well as customers. We know that quality is above all else what drives us, to deliver a superior product to our consumer while wasting as little as possible. Having the freedom to make choices that allow us to grow as a business but the focus on responsibility to deliver results keeps us moving forward with a sound structure rather than becoming stagnant.

Mars' organizational structure begins with each associate. Groups of associates with specialized roles are managed by "People Leaders," these "People Leaders" then report up to "Senior Leaders" who oversee several groups from a more high level perspective, this goes on, so on and so forth all the way up to the Global Management team.

Currently Mars is transitioning Presidents from Paul Michaels to Grant Reid. Grant, in his acceptance to the Office of the President had the following to say,

"I'm grateful to the Board of Directors for giving me this opportunity and proud to have been chosen as the next President of Mars, Incorporated. Mars has always encouraged and provided opportunity for growth and development of Associates, and I am certainly living proof of that fact. I believe in the Mars culture, I love the Mars brands and I know that we have the best Associates in the world. We have a truly exciting future and I'm honored to lead the organization into that future."

Now, where the Mars bureaucracy and organizational structure may be similar to other large companies, it differs greatly as well, everyone from the associate working in the plant to the President of a business segment must punch in every day. Mars also employs an "open office" policy, that is, no one has their own office or cubicle, and these aspects of our "mars culture" serve as a method of reinforcing the Mutuality principle in a visible, tangible way. No individual is any more important than another, we are all part of a larger team working towards a common goal, and rather than just say these sorts of corporate sentiments, Mars puts them into action.

When it comes to internal language, or language presented outwardly to the public, Mars is no exception to having its own way of doing things. With such popular brands as Snickers, "Hungry? Why wait?" or Skittle's, "Taste the rainbow," to the more broad statement "creating small moments of joy...that make people smile." It's clear what Mars' main focus is and the image we want to portray to the public. We make candy, candy is fun, and it puts a smile on your face, and in the simplest terms that's what Mars' is trying to convey with the majority of its slogans.

Internally, mars is notorious for creating acronyms and new terms, so much so that we have our own Vocabulary link so that all new associates can learn to speak what is affectionately known as "Martian." Much of the normal corporate jargon is also used, often times a conversation happening in an open forum may be "taken offline" either signifying that it's not appropriate for all parties in the room to hear or that it's simply not efficient to have so many people a part of the discussion and can be isolated to the necessary parties. It's not uncommon to hear someone say that we need to have a "more robust process" in place for something, calling for more clarity, greater detail and more resources to ensure that no issues arise and we provide the greatest opportunity for success.

While all individuals bring their own set of skills and style to management the idea of the "Mars culture" is prevalent and used as the foundation for governance. All managers, from global leadership to line managers, understand, and use the five principles as a guiding method. There is some sense of a "cookie cutter" format for personal development in the company; the structure is designed to be so. Every individual has business objectives to meet that come from the top down, high level to the very specific. So while an individual's personality, idiosyncrasies, philosophies may be encountered on a daily basis, the overall structure for management is laid out with little room for deviation.

While Mars does not fit the typical Bureaucratic example, it does possess a hierarchical format, as well as governance by a set of defined principles. With any major corporation there will always be some deviation from the corporate standard, my experience has shown that low level managers will deviate the most; high level