With about $33 billion in global revenue last year, Mars would be in the top 100 of the Fortune 500, ahead of McDonald's, Starbucks, and General Mills. It employs 72,000 people, more than a third of them in America.
Its diversified galaxy of brands for man and beast are iconic -- from chocolate favorites like M&M's and Snickers to Wrigley's Juicy Fruit and Lifesavers to pet-care products like Pedigree and Whiskas, as well as Uncle Ben's Converted Rice.
The company says it does 200 million consumer transactions a day. But despite that reach across civilization and into customer pockets, Mars is among the most secretive, insular, and little understood multinational companies around.
It is still 100% family-owned -- now by the three elderly offspring of Forrest Mars Sr., who launched Mars onto its trajectory as a confectionery colossus after taking over the business from his father, Franklin C. Mars, who died in 1934. The three owners are all multibillionaires -- each is reportedly among the 20 or so richest Americans. Ask employees -- while officially called "associates," they sometimes refer to themselves as Martians -- about a member of the Mars family, and you're about as likely to get a revealing answer as if you'd asked about the proprietary process in which they stamp "m" on the little colored candies.
For the first time, the company has made it onto Fortune's annual U.S. roster of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. At No. 95 on the 2013 list, Mars boasts employees who love not only the products they make but also the office culture and the company's long-standing principles. The "Five Principles of Mars": quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency, freedom. According to a regulatory filing for 2011 in the State of Delaware, where Mars is incorporated, there are six members, all grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Frank Mars. One is Victoria Mars, a great-grandaughter of founder Frank Mars and the company ombudsman.
Today, Mars has 11 billion-dollar brands and not everything at Mars is about chocolate. Mar's 78-year-old pet-care division lead by Linda Mars is the company's biggest business, employing nearly half its employees worldwide.
What becomes striking is that Mars family board members are intimately involved in the business by visiting each plant location at least once a year along with the fact that Mars is a sweet company at which to be an employee.
For example, a typical Mars plant manager influences associates by his or her ability to pace development of operational systems and innovative approaches. These operational managers' value to Mars is they initiate or design positive changes. And since these managers would increase their effectiveness with more warmth and tactful communication (read: effective team cooperation), Mars leadership encourages them to get a personal executive coach along with experienced mentors.
The irony of the company's very privateness, employees stress, is that it turns out to be a boon. Employees have autonomy to experiment with ideas and management has the patience to train. It doesn't work that way elsewhere. Debra Sandler, president of the chocolate division, said, "This is probably the only company in which I was told, 'You're not investing enough in your brand.'"
"A lot of really good companies invest in the wrong architecture," says Paul S. Michaels, the nonfamily president of Mars. "Does it add value for the consumer [for] Snickers bars to pay for marble floors and Picassos?" Perhaps, most significant, employees have great latitude for advancement, both within their divisions and in the larger Mars workplace. The demographics of the Mars workplace in the U.S. -- about 70% of it in manufacturing, almost entirely nonunionized -- are diverse; women constitute 38% of the managers.
Source: FORTUNE, February 4, 2013
When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women
When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition