25 Years of Grupo Los Grobo
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Los Grobo 25 years imagining and building the future Appreciation The production team of this book expresses its appreciation to those who have contributed to the collective development of this book, full of enriching voices and points of view. It has been our intention to mention the individual contributions in the text in recognition of their authors. We apologize for any involuntary omission. We are responsible for possible errors, despite our efforts to avoid them. We extend our appreciation to the directors and shareholders for their confidence in carrying out this project and for their active participation in giving ideas, suggestions and points of view. Los Grobo Together we add value Contents Los Grobo: 25 years imagining and building the future 9 Chapter 1. Los Grobo today “We are not great, we are too many” 15 The action 18 Sharing 20 Intelligence 22 Excellence in pursuit of a dream 28 Los Grobo as a case study 34 The organization 36 Governance structure 48 Chapter 2. History The starting point 55 Planning for change 62 The refoundation of the company 64 Father, son, daughters, sons-in-law and daughter-in-law 68 Growing with a lot of effort 76 Effervescence in the ‘90s 80 Building the network 84 With a focus on processes 92 Managing the 2001 crisis 98 Change of image and home 104 Towards a multi-local business 112 Reconfiguration as a Group and arrival in the capital market 124 Redefining governance 130 Twenty five years later 143 Accelerated changes – Schedule 146 Chapter 3. Visiones Los Grobo and the creation of a vision 153 The power of vision. Casares en 2020 154 A shared vision and an agenda for the common good 158 Chapter 4. The mainstays of the business Agriculture 165 Where, what, how and with whom 167 The SME engineer in the network 172 Consultancy or “teaching to fish” 178 Silo storage facilities 187 An opportunity to store 190 Purchase, rent, or nothing 194 Geographical expansion 200 Inputs 205 The value of the service 208 Mills 213 The process 214 The strategy 220 The plan 222 SGR and financial services 227 Sharing opportunities: the SGR 227 Advantages 230 Chain Services 235 Chapter 5. Chapter 5. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Corporate Social Responsibility at Los Grobo 245 Fundación Emprendimientos Rurales (Foundation of Rural Business Ventures) 247 Corporate Social Responsibility area 252 Los Grobo’s commitment to the environment 254 Reference frameworks and environmental reports 260 Awards and honors 261 Annexes Media exposure 266 Humor 290 Visits, travel and personalities 296 Gallery of characters that had to be present 302 Concepts, the view of the key leaders 308 Agricultural networks: social responsibility and transparency. Decio Zylbersztajn 309 The environment and the new Argentine agriculture. Ernesto F. Viglizzo 312 Business competitive abilities and sustainable development. Bernardo Kosacoff 315 The new life. Juan Enriquez 318 From the individual farmer to the networks of agricultural production. Roberto Bisang 320 Opportunities for the Mercosur. Roberto Rodrigues 323 Agriculture and knowledge society, inspired in Francesco, thinking of Los Grobo. Víctor Trucco 326 Example of high technology and productivity. Jorge Castro 329 Indeed, a construction company (of social capital) 332 Los Grobo: 25 years imagining and building the future ne century ago, my family came to Argentina and started operating in the Ofarming business on the western side of the province of Buenos Aires. 25 years ago, my father started to develop a project to work with his children, a new life, the idea of what is coming ahead may be different and even better than our legacy. During the past 25 years we have always looked to the future and when I review the imag- es and wording of this publication, I rediscover experiences, the people who have accom- panied us; the successes and failures. And I am eager to thank all those who have made it possible for us to tread this path; many, too many of them are still aboard the ship; others, unfortunately, whether of their own free will or not, have abandoned it. We all recognize that having been present, hav- ing participated, having made our own personal contribution was not in vain. We left be- ing better than we were when we arrived and if we have remained here, we are particular- ly proud to belong, to be part of the story. They say that talking about the past means that you are getting older, but looking back on this short but intense experience of Los Grobo, I feel that the past is tied to the pres- ent and to the future. Have my grandfather Bernardo and my great-grandfather Abraham been “Landless” con- tractors, or service providers, by coincidence? When is there predestination in our soul and in what runs through our veins, and when a new and genuine undertaking? For 25 years we have faced unique, encouraging challenges. Los Grobo is a regional, multi-local business, it is a company from here, no matter where, or where the customers, Gustavo Grobocopatel suppliers and the people working for Los Grobo are from. Its ideas, its culture, its business CEO of Grupo Los Grobo model are always adopted by many other companies and Los Grobo is a subject for de- bate at the universities, in the farming sector, between workers and politicians. We do not want to go unnoticed, we want to drive transformations or revolutions, we want progress and the best quality of life, we want people to be free, stand-alone, empowered but do not want them to think only about themselves. We believe in the collective pro- cesses based on our experience, rather than as an act of faith. Los Grobo is the fruit of a big collective process. I cannot mention anyone in particular, there are many people, one thousand names come to mind, but I should only say that nothing would have been possible without Adolfo, our founder. He opened doors when no one opened them, with generosity to share. He passionately encouraged those who were tired, disturbed those who did not know or did not become aware, and showed himself as a caring, sensitive, perfectible and fallible man so that we can learn from his errors. I have dreamt that it was the year 2020 and that Paula and I were having a coffee in a bar in an unknown rural village. It could be any place in Africa or Eastern Europe, or a village in India, the Colombian high plateau, or Brazil. We were hearing what two villagers were saying about the development of agriculture and its industrialization, about new technologies and new forms of organization, about how progress had come to their village and young people did not want to leave any more. We heard what they were saying about many things with happiness and hope; suddenly, one of them asked: Why is that business here called Los Grobo? Chapter 1 LOS GROBO TODAY LOS GROBO 25 years imagining and building the future | 15 LOS GROBO TODAY “ We are not great, we are too many” The network is not his leitmotiv was created in 2008, when the company was about to commemo- “ formed by publishing rate its 25th anniversary and clearly and easily summarizes the essence of Los an advertisement in TGrobo. the newspapers and Los Grobo was born as an ordinary company that engaged in the farming business, recruiting people.We but followed a different path and started to be considered as a study case by the are all proud of this, most renowned universities in the world and as an Argentine agricultural icon of the 21st century. because it is a great challenge.” Its uniqueness is not based on its achievement of a certain scale of production, stock- ing or billings, but on its forming part in an innovative manner of a universe of 10,000 SMEs, including suppliers and customers, in the four Mercosur member countries, in Víctor Trucco, at the Bioceres Meeting in 2009 terms of Agribusiness. Essentially, Los Grobo is a company that manages the relationships between the net- work members “seeking to create value for the stakeholders involved”. Although the agricultural production is naturally rich in relationships between players, innovation consisted in focusing strength on the management of those relationships. In the ‘90s, the accelerated growth was given by the association with farmers that knew the territory, natural resources and technologies full well. This horizontal articulation between companies that engaged in grain production ex- tended to the farming machinery service providers, suppliers of inputs, cereal proces- The Company staff in Carlos Casares sors, until it became the network company of today. on November 11, 2007 during the commemoration of the Grobo’s Day. The strategic plan was presented on that occasion 16 | CHAPTER 1 | LOS GROBO TODAY In 2006, Los Grobo established Frontec SA for the development and dissemination of technological packages tailored to the Buenos Aires western region. The photograph shows a dynamic exhibition of soybean-wheat intersowing, in the Kolker farm. Diego Fattore, Gerardo Burriel and Magdalena Eceizabarrena at a meeting of managers of Los Grobo Agropecuaria in 2007, “promoting welfare” in terms of Amartya Sen. One of our basic “ assumptions is that when we spend most of our time doing what we love, things tend to turn out better.” Magdalena Eceizabarrena “We are the coordinators of a network of competitive suppliers, with high quali- ty standards behind a shared vision: Being the world leaders of the agrifood net- work because of our ability to understand the new paradigm, to provide innova- tive services”. This paradigm is linked with the application of the postulates of the Knowledge Econ- omy to Agribusiness.