Foundation The T. & A. Baťa Shoe Company was founded on 21 September 1894 in the
Moravian town of
Zlín,
Austria-Hungary (today in the
Czech Republic), by
Tomáš Baťa, his brother Antonín and his sister Anna, whose family had been
cobblers for generations. To overcome these setbacks, he 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, Baťa installed its first steam-driven machines, beginning a period of rapid modernisation. In 1904, Tomáš read a newspaper article about machines being made in the United States such as
Jan Ernst Matzeliger's
automatic laster. Therefore, he took three workers and journeyed to
Lynn, a city outside
Boston that was then the center of the
world footwear industry, in order to study and understand the American system of mass production. After six months he returned to Zlín and he introduced mechanized production techniques that allowed the Baťa Shoe Company to become one of the first mass producers of shoes in Europe. Its first mass product, the "Baťovky," 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 after Antonín's death in 1908, Tomáš brought two of his younger brothers, Jan and Bohuš, into the business. Initial export sales and the first ever sales agencies began in
Germany in 1909, followed by the
Balkans and the
Middle East. Baťa shoes were considered to be excellent quality, and were available in more styles than had ever been offered before. By 1912, Baťa was employing 1500 full-time workers, plus another several hundred who worked out of their homes in neighbouring 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
Plzeň, 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. Tomáš Baťa responded to the crisis by cutting the price of Bata shoes in half. Baťa combined the automated efficiency of the factory with social welfare; the early experiments in collectivism and profit-sharing laid the groundwork for a reinvention of industrial management. Not only did the company build employee housing, schools, shops and a hospital, but it also offered recreational amenities — everything from a cinema, library, department store, dance halls, and espresso bars to a swimming pool and airfield, all courtesy of Bata Shoes.
Diversification and foreign growth executive aircraft operated before the Second World War by Baťa in Europe Baťa also began to build towns and factories outside of Czechoslovakia (
Poland,
Latvia,
Romania, Switzerland,
France) and to diversify into such industries as tanning (1915), the energy industry and agriculture (1917), forestry, newspaper publishing and brick manufacturing (1918), wood processing (1919), the
rubber industry (1923), construction industry, railway, and air transport (1924), book publishing (1926), the film industry and food processing (1927), chemical production (1928), tyre manufacturing and insurance (1930), textile production (1931), motor and sea transport, and
coal mining (1932), airplane manufacturing (1934),
synthetic fibre production (1935), and river transport (1938).
Jan Antonín Baťa and international expansion At the time of Tomáš's death, the Baťa company employed 16,560 people, maintained 1,645 shops and 25 enterprises. Jan Antonín Baťa, following the plans laid down by Tomáš Baťa 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 Baťamen. The Baťa model fitted anywhere, creating, for example, canteens for vegetarians in India. In exchange, the demands on workers were the same 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!" Bata India was incorporated as Bata Shoe Company Pvt. Ltd in 1931 and went on to become Bata India Ltd. in 1973. The Batanagar factory was the first Indian shoe manufacturing unit to receive the
ISO 9001 certification in 1993. As of 1934, the firm owned 300 stores in
North America (after World War II, many of theses stores were rebranded with the "Barrett Shoes" trademark), 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.
Bata-villes Company policy initiated under Tomáš Baťa was to set up villages around the factories for the workers and to supply schools and welfare. These villages include
Batadorp in the
Netherlands, Baťovany (present-day
Partizánske) and
Svit in Slovakia, Baťov (now Bahňák, part of
Otrokovice) in the
Czech Republic, Borovo-Bata (now
Borovo Naselje, part of
Vukovar in
Croatia then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Bata Park in
Möhlin, Switzerland, in
Lorraine, France,
Batawa (
Ontario) in Canada,
Batatuba (
São Paulo),
Batayporã and
Bataguassu (
Mato Grosso do Sul) in Brazil,
East Tilbury in Essex, England,
Batapur in
Pakistan and
Batanagar and
Bataganj in India. There was also a factory in
Belcamp,
Maryland, USA, northeast of
Baltimore on
U.S. Route 40 in
Harford County. The British "Bata-ville" in East Tilbury inspired the documentary film
Bata-ville: We Are Not Afraid of the Future.
World War II Just before the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Baťa 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 United States from 1939–1940, but when the USA 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 was put on British and US
black lists for doing business with the
Axis powers, and in 1941 he emigrated to Brazil. After the war ended, the Czechoslovak authorities tried Baťa as a traitor, saying he had failed to support the anti-Nazi resistance. In 1947 he was sentenced
in absentia to 15 years in prison. The company's Czechoslovak assets were also seized by the state – several months before the communists came to power. 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. In 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 former Bata shoe factory (now under German administration and renamed "Schlesische Schuh-Werke Ottmuth, A.G") at
Chełmek with Jewish slave labourers. The prisoners, mostly from France,
Belgium, and the Netherlands, were tasked to clean the ponds from which the plant drew the water it needed. Also slave workers from the
ghetto of Radom were forced to work at the Bata factory for a soup a day. The Baťa factory was bombed by the 15th AF, 455th BG at 1235 hrs using 254 x 500 RDX bombs (63.50 tons). The strikes fell south in the workers dwellings and carried across eastern half of plant layout. Numerous hits in this section included warehouses, machine shops and footwear production buildings.
Post-war: rebuilding was the global headquarters during its entire existence (1965–2004). Tomáš's son
Thomas J. Bata, manager of the buying department of the British Bata Company, was unable to return until after the war. He was sent to Canada by his uncle Jan, to become the Vice President of the Bata Import and Export Company of Canada, which was founded in a company town named
Batawa, opened in 1939. Foreign subsidiaries were separated from the parent company, and ownership of plants in
Bohemia and Moravia was transferred to another member of the family. After World War II, governments in Czechoslovakia, In 1980, Bata-sponsored
Eliseo Salazar won the
Aurora Formula One Championship. Bata was one of the official sponsors of the
1986 FIFA World Cup held in Mexico, and Bata Power shoes were the official footwear for the
1987 ICC Cricket World Cup. Bata also sponsored 2014
Electronic Sports World Cup.
Czechoslovakia after 1989 Thomas J. Baťa returned in December 1989, soon after the
Velvet Revolution in November. 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 its decline, and in 2000 Svit went bankrupt.
Present After the global economic changes of the 1990s, the company closed a number of its factories in developed countries and focused on expanding retail business. Bata moved out of Canada in several steps. In 2000, it closed its Batawa factory, then in 2001, it closed its Bata retail stores, retaining its "Athletes World" retail chain. In 2004, the Bata headquarters were moved to Lausanne, Switzerland and leadership was transferred to Thomas (Tomáš) G. Bata, grandson of the founder. The notable Bata headquarters building in Toronto was vacated and eventually demolished to much controversy. In 2007, the Athletes World chain was sold, ending Bata retail operations in Canada. Bata maintains the headquarters for its "Power" brand of footwear in Toronto. The
Bata Shoe Museum, founded by Sonja Bata, and operated by a charitable foundation, is also located in Toronto. Although no longer chairman of the company, the elder Bata remained active in its operations and carried business cards listing his title as "chief shoe salesman." On 1 September 2008 Thomas John Bata (Thomáš Jan Baťa) died at
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto at the age of 93. Bata estimates that it serves more than 1 million customers per day, employing over 32,000 people, operates more than 5,300 shops, manages 21 production facilities and a retail presence in over 70 countries across the five continents. Bata has a strong presence in countries including India where it has been present since 1931. Bata India has four factories. The Batanagar Industrial Township in
Kolkata (1930) is the largest shoe-maker in Asia. The business is organised in five regions: Africa (with regional office based in
Limuru,
Kenya),
APAC (with regional office based in Singapore), Latin America (with regional office based in
Santiago de Chile,
Chile),
India (with regional office based in
New Delhi) and Europe (with regional office based in
Padua,
Italy). ==Bata brands==