Empires Can Fall

In our last class, what really struck me was professor Rapp’s comment “that no matter how much empire you have, it can fall.” There is a perception of the wine industry, at least in my opinion, that old distinguished brands control the market and because of this, there is very little room for fresh contemporary ideas and cutting edge brands to thrive within this “old boys club” of sorts. I was familiar with Domaines Barons de Rothschild and like many others in the class associated the wine with quality, wealth, exclusivity and cache. And I was not wrong in my assumptions and associations. As we learned in class, the strong value of this wine company lies in its brand identity and superior quality.

Domaines Barons de Rothschild is a global brand we as business students can look at fondly and potentially model our future businesses around. More importantly though, as young entrepreneurs hoping to build sustainable companies post GSB (with superior quality products and/or strong brand identities) it is important to take careful note of one of the key lessons I took away from this case; with great product and great branding, also comes great responsibility to protect the competitive advantage (Peter Parker is not the only one whom the quote applies). Building a strong product and a brand is simply not enough, and is only part one of the process. We must also be mindful of the many threats to dominance within a market and know how to protect the brand. Of course it is important to not dilute quality, but it is also important to continue learning, expanding and challenging the company to grow in new ways. Because no matter how great or dominant a company becomes, the lazy monopolist always has the potential to fall.