Winemaker with a taste for innovation
Date posted: 26 Jul 2011
Ross Brown
Graduate Certificate in Enterprise Management 1996
Ross Brown says the success of his family’s Brown Brothers wine business is in innovation and thinking long term.
The former CEO of one of Australia’s most renowned wine makers has handed over the reins to the company’s general manager, Roland Wahlquist, and is taking on a new role as executive director of the family business he joined in 1970.
Ross has left an inspiring legacy from his decade at the helm – a period in which the company’s annual turnover doubled from $50 million in 2001 to $100 million in 2011.
This achievement reflects a business philosophy honed after he took a year off in 1996 to undertake the Graduate Certificate in Enterprise Management at Swinburne (now known as the Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation).
It strengthened the entrepreneurial approach of a company that has embraced innovation since Ross’s grandfather John Francis Brown planted the first 10 acres of vines at Milawa, in Victoria’s north east, in 1885.
Brown Brothers now produces about 40 different varieties of wines from five vineyards in northern Victoria and exports to 24 countries.
The secret to the company’s ongoing success, Ross says, is innovation. For example, trialling new varietals directly with the customer at the cellar door enabled the business to gain rapid feedback that it was able to use to keep a competitive edge.
“As a company we’ve probably been one of the most innovative in the Australian wine industry because we’ve been first to market with many new and different wine styles.”
Ross initiated and developed the Epicurean Centre, a restaurant next to the cellar door at Milawa where wines are paired with local gourmet produce. He also saw a gap in the market for luxury accommodation to entice Melbourne visitors, and the Lindenwarrah Country House Hotel was born on land adjoining the vineyard.
This kind of vision was always an intuitive part of Brown Brothers’ management, but Ross says the Swinburne course drove home the importance of corporate strategy and long-term planning – elements necessary to many businesses but particularly his industry. “In our business we plant a vine to make wine in five or six years’ time.”
Ross says the wine industry is cyclical, with on average 15 years between boom and bust. The advantage of a historic business is that the downturns are not unexpected.
“They’ve always happened before. We’re well equipped to grapple with difficult times. Well equipped means you don’t have a lot of borrowings, and you are running a tight ship – all the time – so you don’t get caught out.
“We’ve managed to grow the business when a lot of other businesses haven’t been able to. That has made us distinctive.”
Read the full article in Swinburne Magazine, Issue 13, July 2011.
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