Bata company
Basic Facts
Bata is a family-owned global footwear and fashion accessory manufacturer and retailer
with acting headquarters located in Lausanne, Switzerland. Organised into three
business units: Bata Europe, based in Italy; Bata Emerging Market (Asia, Pacific, Africa
and Latin America), based in Singapore, and Bata Protective (worldwide B2B operations),
based in the Netherlands, the organisation has a retail presence in over 70 countries
and production facilities in 26 countries. In its history the Bata has sold more than 14
billion pairs of shoes and was awarded the Guinness World Record as the "Largest Shoe
Retailer and Manufacturer".
Foundation
The company was founded under the name A. Baťa in 1894 by Tomáš Baťa , his brother
Antonín and his sister Anna, whose family had been cobblers for generations. The
company employed 10 full-time employees with a fixed work schedule and a regular
weekly wage, a rare find in its time.
In the summer of 1895, Tomáš found himself facing financial difficulties, and debts
abounded. To overcome these serious setbacks, Tomáš decided to sew shoes from
canvas instead of leather. This type of shoe became very popular and helped the
company grow to 50 employees. Four years later, Bata installed its first steam-driven
machines, beginning a period of rapid modernization. In 1904 Tomáš Baťa introduced
mechanized production techniques that allowed the Bata Shoe Company to become one
of the first mass producers of shoes in Europe. Its first mass product, the “Batovky,”
was a leather and textile shoe for working people that was notable for its simplicity,
style, light weight and affordable price. Its success helped fuel the company’s growth
and, by 1912, Bata was employing 600 full-time workers, plus another several hundred
who worked out of their homes in neighboring villages.
World War I
In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, the company had a significant development
due to military orders. From 1914 to 1918 the number of Baťa’s employees increased ten
times. The company opened its own stores in Zlín, Prague, Liberec, Vienna and Pilsen,
among other towns.
In the global economic slump that followed World War I, the newly created country of
Czechoslovakia was particularly hard hit. With its currency devalued by 75%, demand
for products dropped, production was cut back, and unemployment was at an all-time
high. Tomas Bata responded to the crisis by cutting the price of Bata shoes in half. The
company’s workers agreed to a temporary 40 percent reduction in wages; in turn, Bata
provided food, clothing, and other necessities at half-price. He also introduced one of
the first profit sharing initiative transforming all employees into associates with a
shared interest in the company's success (today's equivalent of performance based
incentives and stock options).
Shoemaker to the world
Consumer response to the price drop was dramatic. While most competitors were
forced to close due to the crisis in demand between 1923 and 1925, Bata was expanding
as demand for the inexpensive shoes grew rapidly. The Bata Shoe Company increased
production and hired more workers. Zlin became a veritable factory town, a "Bataville"
covering several acres. On the site were grouped tanneries, a brickyard, a chemical
factory, a mechanical equipment plant and repair shop, workshops for the production of
rubber, a paper pulp and cardboard factory (for production of packaging), a fabric
factory (for lining for shoes and socks), a shoe-shine factory, a power plant and a
farming actvities to cover both food and energy needs... Horizontal and vertical
integration. Workers, "Batamen", and their families had at their disposal all the
necessary everyday life services: housing, shops, schools, hospital, etc.
International growth
In 1924 Tomáš Baťa displayed his business acumen by figuring out how much turnover
he needed to make with his annual plan, weekly plans and daily plans. Baťa utilized four
types of wages – fixed rate, individual order based rate, collective task rate and profit
contribution rate. He also set what became known as Baťa prices – numbers ending with
a nine rather than with a whole number. His business skyrocketed. Soon Baťa found
himself the fourth richest person in Czechoslovakia. From 1926 to 1928 the business
blossomed as productivity rose 75 percent and the number of employees increased by
35 percent. In 1927 production lines were installed, and the company had its own
hospital. By the end of 1928, the company’s head factory was composed of 30 buildings.
Then the entrepreneur created educational organizations such as the Baťa School of
Work and introduced the five-day work week. In 1930 he established a stunning shoe
museum that maps shoe production from the earliest times to the contemporary age
throughout the world. By 1931 there were factories in Germany, England, the
Netherlands, Poland and in other countries.
In 1932, at the age of 56, Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash during take off under bad
weather conditions at Zlín Airport. Control of the company was passed to his halfbrother, Jan, and his son, Thomas John Bata, who would go on to lead the company for
much of the twentieth century guided by their father’s moral testament: the Bata Shoe
company was to be treated not as a source of private wealth, but as a public trust, a
means of improving living standards within the community and providing customers with
good value for their money. Promise was made to pursue the entrepreneurial, social and
humanitarian ideals of their father.
Jan Antonín Baťa
At the time of Tomáš's death, the Baťa company employed 16,560 people, maintained
1,645 shops and 25 enterprises. Jan Baťa, following the plans laid down by Tomas Bata
before his death, expanded the company more than six times its original size
throughout Czechoslovakia and the world. Plants in Britain, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia,
Brazil, Kenya, Canada and the United States, followed in the decade. In India,
Batanagar was settled near Calcutta and accounted from the late 1930s nearly 7500
Batamen. The Bata model fitted anywhere, creating, for example, canteens for
vegetarians in India and respecting the caste system. In exchange, the demands on
workers were as strong as in Europe: "Be courageous. The best in the world is not good
enough for us. Loyalty gives us prosperity & happiness. Work is a moral necessity!"
As of 1934, the firm owned 300 stores in North America, a thousand in Asia, more than
4,000 in Europe. In 1938, the Group employed just over 65,000 people worldwide,
including 36% outside Czechoslovakia and had stakes in the tanning, agriculture,
newspaper publishing, railway and air transport, textile production, coal mining and
aviation realms.
World War II
Just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Bata helped re-post his Jewish
employees to branches of his firm all over the world. Germany occupied the remaining
part of pre-war Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939; Jan Antonín Baťa then spent a short
time in jail but was then able to leave the country with his family. Jan Antonín Baťa
stayed in the Americas from 1939–1940, but when America entered the war, he felt it
would be safer for his co-workers and their families back in occupied Czechoslovakia if
he left the United States. He tried to save as much as possible of the business,
submitting to the plans of Germany as well as financially supporting the Czechoslovak
Government-in-Exile led by Edvard Beneš.
At occupied Europe a Bata shoe factory was connected to the concentration camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first slave labour efforts in Auschwitz involved the Bata shoe
factory. In 1942 a small camp was established to support the Bata shoe factory at
Chełmek with Jewish slave labourers.
After war.
After war governments in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Yugoslavia
confiscated and nationalized Bata factories in 1945, stripping Bata of its Eastern
European assets. From its new base in Canada, the company gradually rebuilt itself,
expanding into new markets throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin
America. Rather than organizing these new operations in a highly centralized structure,
Bata established a confederation of autonomous units that could be more responsive to
new markets in developing countries.
In 1964, the Bata Shoe Organisation moved their headquarters to Toronto, Canada—and
in 1965 moved again, into an ultra-modern building, the Bata International Centre. The
Bata Shoes' former headquarters in North York, Ontario was designed in the 1960s by
architect John B. Parkin.
Czechoslovakia after 1989
After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, Thomas J. Baťa arrived as soon as
December 1989. The Czechoslovak government offered him the opportunity to invest in
the ailing government-owned Svit shoe company. Since companies nationalised before
1948 were not returned to their original owners, the state continued to own Svit and
privatised it during voucher privatisation in Czechoslovakia. Svit's failure to compete in
the free market led to decline, and in 2000 Svit went bankrupt.
Present
After the global economic changes of the 1990s, the company closed a number of its
manufacturing factories in developed countries and focused on expanding retail
business. In 2004, the Bata headquarters were moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, under
the leadership of Thomas G. Bata, grandson of Tomáš Baťa.
In 2008, M. Thomas John Bata died aged 93 at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in
Toronto at the age of 93 years old. M. Bata’s son, Thomas George Bata, became
chairman and chief executive of the company in 2001, but the elder Mr. Bata remained
active in its operations and carried business cards listing his title as “chief shoe
salesman.”
Today, the Bata Shoe Organization serves more than 1 million customers per day,
employs over 30,000 people, operates more than 5,000 retail stores, manages 26
production facilities and a retail presence in over 90 countries.
Bata in the world
Tomáš Baťa
Tomáš Baťa was a Czech entrepreneur,founder of the Baťa Shoes company, one of the
world's biggest multinational retailers, manufacturers and distributors of footwear and
accessories.
His brother Antonín Baťa and sister Anna were partners in the startup firm T. & A.
Bata Shoe Company. Though the organization 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 his new firm very quickly. In 1904 Baťa
worked on an assembly line in the United States and brought his acquaintance with the
method back to Zlín. With modern production and long distance retailing, Baťa
modernized the shoemaking industry. By the early 1930s, under Tomas Bata's
leadership the Baťa enterprise and Czechoslovakia were the world's leading footwear
exporters. Tomas and his brother Jan together were responsible for the design of the
Bata industrial system. For example, under Jan's administration in Zlin, he developed
and built more square meters of buildings than under Tomas' time. 12th July 1932
Tomáš Baťa died with his pilot Henry Brouck in an accident while in his personal aircraft
Junkers F 13 flew to Switzerland to attend the opening of a new branch in the town
Möhlin.
Jan Antonín Baťa
Jan Antonín Baťa, called The King of Shoes was a Czech shoe manufacturer halfbrother of Tomáš Baťa. After his half-brother Tomas' death (1932) Jan Antonin Bata
headed the Baťa company and in 1931 it Baťa a.s. based in Zlín. At the time of Tomáš's
death, the Baťa company employed 16,560 people, maintained 1,645 shops and 25
enterprises. Jan Baťa, following the plans laid down by Tomas Bata before his death,
expanded the company more than six times its original size throughout Czechoslovakia
and the world. Plants in Britain, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Kenya, Canada and
the United States, followed in the decade. In India, Batanagar was settled near
Calcutta and accounted from the late 1930s nearly 7500 Batamen. The Bata model
fitted anywhere, creating, for example, canteens for vegetarians in India and
respecting the caste system. In exchange, the demands on workers were as strong as in
Europe: "Be courageous. The best in the world is not good enough for us. Loyalty gives
us prosperity & happiness. Work is a moral necessity!"
As of 1934, the firm owned 300 stores in North America, a thousand in Asia, more than
4,000 in Europe. In 1938, the Group employed just over 65,000 people worldwide,
including 36% outside Czechoslovakia and had stakes in the tanning, agriculture,
newspaper publishing, railway and air transport, textile production, coal mining and
aviation realms.