![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2014\/05\/th.jpg\")
<\/a>The first was with two operations\/marketing people from Azul airlines, Brazil\u2019s equivalent to Jet Blue.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, the airline was founded by one of the Jet Blue entrepreneurs, who left the US airline in something of a cloud, but who had a good enough reputation with investors to parley 235 million dollars into the start of what is Brazil\u2019s 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0largest airline.<\/p>\nIf you think of the size of Brazil (5th<\/sup>\u00a0largest country) and population (5th<\/sup>\u00a0largest country), and the poor infrastructure,\u00a0\u00a0air travel makes a lot of sense.\u00a0\u00a0Donald Needleman recognized that need for business travelers, and copied the Jet Blue model here in 2008.\u00a0\u00a0In six years, the\u00a0\u00a0company has grown to the point where it has filed to fly to Miami and New York, using secondary airports (Fort Lauderdale and Newark) ala Jet Blue\u2019s model.<\/p>\n The founders set a nearby city of 7 million, within driving distance of San Paulo as a hub (it\u2019s apparently easier to drive away from the city than into it). \u00a0Sao Paulo has the second largest number of helicopters for in city travel in the world\u2014and when the Azul executives go into the city, they travel in a bullet proof car.\u00a0 They’re not alone in tight security; most of the industrial factories, and some of the homes, and even a few of the malls, are fenced with razor wire at the top. Azul executives have managed, through efficient computer programs, to capture about 85% of business traffic on smaller planes with more frequent service than the existing domestic airlines.\u00a0\u00a0They demonstrated that it\u2019s cheaper (as well as faster) to fly than to take a bus or a car, though rates are also subject to equations that maximize revenue.<\/p>\n They painted an interesting picture of the airline industry in Brazil, describing it as akin to the balance of mass destruction in the Cold War. If everyone is rational, all can survive, but if one lowers fairs, it could ruin them all.\u00a0\u00a0They also described some of the problems peculiar to airlines in Brazil\u2014the high taxes on fuel (which led to experiments with local manufacturer Embraer in an ethanol-friendly plane, ethanol being one of the domestically-produced alternatives to fossil fuel) and the short runways or the lack of fire trucks which makes it difficult to expand.\u00a0\u00a0The government did privatize the major airports they said, which has reduced the amount of bureaucracy (Brazil is the 79th<\/sup> worst country in the world to do business) , but the presence of Petrobas, the gasoline monopoly, makes aviation fuel almost 40% more expensive in Brazil than in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0They also discussed the possibility of carrying freight, but they said it would require larger planes, though they do carry small packages. We also saw the command post where they work on scheduling maintenance, arranging luggage in\u00a0\u00a0plane (from the corporate headquarters) etc.\u00a0 When I asked about corporate social responsibility\u2014almost invariably the first topic any of the Indian companies mentioned\u2014they were ambiguous, mentioning \u201ceducation and kids.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0As for reducing carbon footprint, they said that they would embrace it when customers were willing to pay for it, because in the long supply chain the airlines were much less profitable than the manufacturers or the airports\u2026.it\u2019s not India.<\/p>\n Dinner was at a local barbeque, with something like 19 different cuts of beef for sampling.\u00a0\u00a0I probably ate more beef tonight than in the last three months.\u00a0\u00a0Our guide promised nightmares, but I\u2019m hoping for pleasant dreams, which I wish on you too.<\/p>\n We have another visit tomorrow morning, then leave the \u201creal\u201d world for Argentina.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May 12, 2014\u00a0\u00a0Having a \u201creal\u201d good time in Brazil It\u2019s hard not to have a \u201creal\u201d good time\u2014the currency is the \u201creal.\u201d The day in this overwhelming city was spent at two businesses (or on the highway going between the two) which gave us some interesting views of life in Brazil. The first was with … Continue reading “The “Real” World”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fdib-latin-america-2014"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8483"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8488,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483\/revisions\/8488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>The second visit gave us a glimpse into the retail\/consumer goods economy\u2014at the French retail\/online chain, Sephora.\u00a0\u00a0The general manager for Brazil (a recent addition to the company) trained as a chemical engineer and got bored with manufacturing\u2014\u201cit\u2019s the same thing every day.\u201d She got an MBA in marketing, worked for banks and L\u2019oreal before coming to Sephora.\u00a0\u00a0She is part of the Americas division (US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil) and described what we in business call \u201cglocalization\u201d\u2014the adaptation of a global model (French in this case) to meet the needs of a different target market (in this case, Brazilians).\u00a0\u00a0Her numbers and observations on the marketplace were interesting.\u00a0\u00a0Despite the recent slowdown in the economy (despite high employment, there is high inflation, and discontent with the money spent on the World Cup and Olympic facilities at the expense of addressing social issues) as women move into the middle class, one of the early purchases is fragrance\u2014and especially, in Brazil, hair care.\u00a0\u00a0While something like 70% of the women have curly blonde hair, they purchase an average of 5 products to straighten their hair and care for it.\u00a0\u00a0There are only 14 or so stores, and 40% of the sales are on the internet, but the company has fostered ecommerce with free shipping in Brazil.\u00a0\u00a0She talked as well about developing some products in Brazil as a way of bringing the price down and catering to local tastes. Most of the products come from the United States, France, or China\u2014meaning high tariffs on imported cosmetics.<\/p>\n