Where would Bata be without this cobbler?

By Kenneth Kwama

The founder of the largest and most successful family-run business in the world, Tomas Bata first worked as a cobbler in Czechoslovakia and was lauded for his enterprising spirit and commitment to his workers.

From its beginning more than 100 years ago, the Bata Shoe Company is reputed to have sold more than 14 billion pairs of shoes-greater than the number of pairs of human feet that have walked the earth.

According to Life and Times Biography series of Canada, Bata started the company in a small town called Slin in former Czechoslovakia on August 24, 1894 with $320 (Sh25,600), which he had inherited from his mother.

His brother Jan Antonin Bata and sister Anna were partners in the firm then referred to as T&A. Bata Shoe Company.

Gained control

Tomas Bata. The company has sold more than 14 billion pairs of shoes since it was established in 1894.

"Though the organisation was newly established, the family had a long history of shoemaking, spanning eight generations and over three hundred years.

This heritage helped boost the popularity of the new firm. With the introduction of factory-style production and long distance retailing, Bata modernised the shoe-making industry and the company surged ahead in production and profits right from its nascent years," states the Wikipedia.

Eventually, Bata obtained sole control over the company in 1908 after his brother Jan died from tuberculosis. Information from various web sources indicate that World War I helped to create booming demand for military shoes, and the company quickly became one of the prime brands.

Bata also exhibited his business acumen, with initiatives aimed at producing low-cost shoes for the general public, whose purchasing power had been significantly reduced in the aftermath of the war.

He also set up factories and companies in other countries like Poland, Yugoslavia, India, the Netherlands, Denmark, UK and the United States.

The factories were self-sufficient and autonomous in their design, production and distribution strategies-a move Bata hoped would enable them cater to the local population.

This worked out well and by early 1930s, the Bata enterprise was the world’s leading footwear exporter.

Bata is widely regarded as a businessman with an acute sense of social consciousness. He is said to be one of the first pioneers of employee welfare and social advancement schemes. He was also credited with efforts to modernise his hometown, providing the people with employment and housing facilities.

These made him very popular in the town and he eventually became its mayor.

"We are granting you the profit share not because we feel a need to give money to the people just out of the goodness of the heart. No, we are aiming at other goals by this step.

By this measure we want to reach a further decrease of production costs. We want to reach a situation where shoes are cheaper and workers earn even more.

We think that our products are still too expensive and workers’ salaries too low," Bata once told employees at the shoe factory in Czechoslovakia.

Social consciousness

Bata died in a plane crash as a result of a broken rib, which pierced through his heart in 1932 near Zlin airport. He was trying to fly to Switzerland on a business trip under bad weather. There are conflicting accounts of what really took place after his demise, but some sources have claimed that the family of his brother, Jan briefly engaged his only son Thomas J. Bata in a tussle for the company.

In 1947 Thomas J. Bata and his mother Marie, as the heirs of Bata started legal proceedings to confirm their ownership rights. The legal proceedings, which continued until 1962, resulted in decisions in favour of the heirs.

During the same year, Jan’s family waived any claims to the Bata companies.

In a scholarly study of Tomas Bata as a leader and business innovator, Dr Myron Tribus states: "The record shows that Bata did indeed precede modern ‘quality management’ practices by at least half a century.

If we look only at that side of the man, we must conclude that he was the first to use quality as a way to lower cost at the same time as he created customer delight."

Bata is said to be the first business leader to invent what is today referred to as Bata price. The method gives a price ended almost always by number nine.