Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz

International Business Management - International Business

Esteban Buitrago Nieto - 713171006
Camila Rodríguez - 713172008
María Fernanda Vaca Veloza - 713171033

ALPINA´S CLASSWORK

1. Ex Ante Competitiveness: Name Alpina´s Firm specific Advantages (resources)

and Location Specific advantages ( you better focus on one country rather to
explain all the countries they have presence in)

Alpina After more than 70 years in the dairy market, began its internationalization process
not only with the export of its products but also with the opening of three production
plants in three countries. This process began in 1987 with the opening of its first silver
production in Ecuador and Venezuela and, in 2012, was present in the U.S. market.

Here we will be focus on the U.S. market, where Alpina in 2009 opened its first
office in Miami in order to establish a presence in the U.S. country. In 2012, Alpina
opened its first production facility in Batavia (New York) with state-of-the-art equipment
which facilitates the exportation to central America.

Most of the Alpina`s products sold in the United States are manufactured in
Batavia and only 20% are imported from Colombia. The healthy food that Alpina
provides began selling to the Hispanic market in the South of Florida and now reaches
Latin American foreigns and the general U.S. market. It's packaging generally provides a
description of the product in English on one side, and in Spanish on the other.

Taking into account the previous context we can say that Alpina was focused on
the U.S. market because as we know in the Latin American people think about the
American dream. Because many of that people started to emigrate to the south of this
country looking for improve their future. So that, the bigger population in that geographic
zone recognize the brand and the quality of it and they fell it like a part of home. Also,
the consumption is higher than the Latin American and it makes an economic
differentiator strategy based on the public that they were looking for.

Its products are sold in big stores as Walmart, Publix, and Winn-Dixie in the south
of Florida, and in some other chains as Western Beef and ShopRite in other states of the
country. It because of the promotion and development of the brand selling to the
customers an attractive, healthy, nutritious and qualified product.
2. Ex Post Competitiveness: Name the most important financial and non
financial indicators of the company

Non financial indicators: As a competitive ex post key performance indicator non-

financial, we found that Alpina for the third consecutive year remains in the top positions
for its great reputation and recognition by the NGO, in addition to 11 audits, which
include consumers, government, financial analysts, opinion leaders, among others.

The company is the third in the business ranking that MERCO monitor developed
on October 2018 which took into account the quality of the commercial offer, financial
results, talent, the international dimension of the company, innovation, corporate
reputation management, ethics, and corporate responsibility.

Taking into account the management report of 2018 Alpina had a milestone
framework because they started to make part of an empresarial group which was termed
as “Grupo Alpina S.A.S.” between this period of time, the group started to have a
significant consolidation because the diversification of its activities as well as its
expansion in other fields of the market as the real-estate`s and services` sector.

“Alpina continues to consolidate itself as one of the companies with the best
reputation in the country and Ernesto Fajardo, President of the company, is positioned
as the ninth best valued business leader in the country” (Alpina`s website, 2018). This
demonstrates a great development in the company, in addition to a good management
that allows them to remain in the top positions for years.

Financial Indicators:

 Net sales reached a value of $1.826.383 billion pesos (COP), with a growth of
2.1% over the previous year.

 The net debt/EBITDA indicator reached 1.6 times, being the lowest level in the
last 10 years. This indicator on 2018 was about $258.061 million pesos (COP),
with a margin of 14,1%. By the other side, its net profit closed in $85.630 million
pesos (COP) growing the 5,5% relating to 2017, with a net profit of 4,7%.

The previous indicator is a result of the optimization and decentralization of the

company's supply channels which was based on the improvement of the
productivity, the new logistic processes, the new raw material ‘suppliers and other
many facts that helps the organization to get better practices.

 According to the financial results of 2017-2018, the gross margin of Alpina had
a variation of 0.8% compared to 2017 which means that it had an increase in the
percentage of total sales of its products at the global level.

 In 2018 Alpina had a return on assets of 3.8%, that is, for each peso invested in
total assets generated 9.5% pesos of net profit.

On the other hand, Alpina shares had a 4.8% variation in profitability with respect
to the previous year, so Alpina's capacity to return on equity was 44.8% by 2018.
 Finally, Alpina's net assets reached a value of $164,406 million pesos, showing a
growth of $19,622 million pesos compared to the previous year.

2. International profile: find real data of the company to show the 6 attributes
revised during the Class.

1. Geography: According to the latest management report for 2018, Alpina has a
presence with four plants (2 in Ecuador, 1 in Venezuela and 1 in the United States) and
exports to Aruba, Curacao, Bolivia, Canada, Cuba, Suriname, Costa Rica, United States,
St Maarten, Guyana, and Ecuador.

Formula: (Number of regions / countries in which a firm operates)

2. People/Attitudes: Here you see an analysis about the principal positions into
Alpina`s company on 2018, so this analysis takes into account people who have lived
and/or studied in other countries, it means international experience.
 Ernesto Fajardo - CEO at Alpina: Has more than 23 years of experience in top
management. He was chosen by the directorate for his experience and abilities to
be a leader in the management of large industrial projects of international
projection. He worked for more than ten years in the American multinational
Monsanto as the Andean and Latin American Region General Director.
The current president of Alpina has a degree in Business Administration from
“Universidad del Rosario” in Bogotá and an MBA from the University of
Washington. He also studied Marketing at the University of Kellog and
Management Skills at Harvard.
 Santiago Peláez Acevedo - Marketing Manager at Alpina: Is a graduated from
the” Colegio de Estudios Superiores de Administración”(CESA), he did his
internship in Alpina and after ten years in the company, where he gained
international experience managing Alpina's operation in Venezuela, he became
Alpina's marketing director in 2018.
  Camila Aguilar Londoño- Alpina Foundation director: Is an economist by
profession, his academic preparation includes a master's degree from
“Universidad de Los Andes”, as well as a master's degree in public and economic
policy from the London School of Economics.
Within his career, he has worked mostly in the public sector, where he held the
position of decentralization manager of Usaid's regional governance program and
held several management positions in the National Planning Department (NPD).

3. Assets/Resources:

The majority of the assets are composed by the international firms with a participation
above the 63,2% which are divided on the Alpina`s Group, that is the same Belalp
Partners International (BPI) (33,8%), Planasilva Anstalt (16,6) and Cayambe
Establishment (12,8%).
By the other side, the 36,8% is national asset, so, despite being a national company
its profits are not higher as we maybe though because the national production and raw
material. In conclusion, Alpina has been being favored by the internationalization of its
company because as we can see the most important resources that they obtain are from
their points of production and sale points in foreign countries than into the own.
 Bibliographic References

Alpina. (2018). Estados Financieros Separados. Taken from:

https://www.alpina.com/Portals/_default/informacion-financiera/estados-
financieros/Estados-financieros-Alpina-2018.pdf

Alpina. (2018). Informe de Gestión del Presidente de Alpina Productos Alimenticios

S.A. Taken from: https://www.alpina.com/Portals/_default/informes-gestion/Informe-
de-Gestion-2018.pdf

Alpina. (2018). Resultados Financieros 3Q 2018. Taken from:

https://www.alpina.com/Portals/_default/informacion-financiera/estados-
financieros/PPT-Resultados-Finacieros-Septiembre-2018.pdf?ver=2018-11-26-145230-
947

Portafolio. (2018). Gestión de Calidad. Taken from:

https://www.portafolio.co/negocios/empresas/gestion-calidad-toque-secreto-exito-
alpina-114698

Alpina. (2018). Alpina, tres años consecutivos en el top de las empresas con mejor
reputación en Colombia. Taken from:
https://www.alpina.com/corporativo/somos-alpina/noticias/alpina-tres-anos-
consecutivos-en-el-top-de-las-empresas-con-mejor-reputacion-en-colombia