Strategy 10

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Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, Exploring Strategy, 9th
Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2011
Slide 10.1
Strategic Choices
10: Mergers, Acquisitions and
Alliances

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Learning outcomes
• Establish the potential role of organic (‘do it
yourself’) strategies.
• Identify key issues in the successful
management of mergers and acquisitions.
• Identify the key issues in the successful
management of strategic alliances.
• Determine the appropriate choices between
organic development, mergers and
acquisitions and strategic alliances.
• Compare key success factors in mergers,
acquisitions and alliances.

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Strategy methods
Figure 10.1 Three strategy methods

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Organic development
Organic development is where a strategy is
pursued by building on and developing an
organisation’s own capabilities. This is
essentially the ‘do it yourself’ method.

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Advantages of organic development
• Knowledge and learning can be enhanced.
• Spreading investment over time – easier to
finance.
• No availability constraints – no need to search
for suitable partners or acquisition targets.
• Strategic independence – less need to make
compromises or accept strategic constraints.

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Corporate entrepreneurship
Corporate entrepreneurship refers to
radical change in the organisation’s business,
driven principally by the organisation’s own
capabilities.
For example, Amazon’s development of
Kindle using its own in house development .

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Mergers and acquisitions
•A merger is the combination of two
previously separate organisations, typically
as more or less equal partners.
•An acquisition involves one firm taking
over the ownership (‘equity’) of another,
hence the alternative term ‘takeover’.

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Strategic motives for M&A
Strategic motives can be categorised in three
ways:
 Extension – of scope in terms of geography,
products or markets.
 Consolidation – increasing scale, efficiency
and market power.
 Capabilities – enhancing technological know-
how (or other competences).

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Financial motives for M&A
There are three main financial motives:
Financial efficiency – a company with a strong
balance sheet (cash rich) may acquire/merge
with a company with a weak balance sheet
(high debt).
Tax efficiency – reducing the combined tax
burden.
Asset stripping or unbundling – selling off bits
of the acquired company to maximise asset
values.

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Managerial motives for M&A
M&A may serve managerial self-interest for two
reasons:
Personal ambition – financial incentives tied to
short-term growth or share-price targets;
boosting personal reputations; giving friends
and colleagues greater responsibility or better
jobs.
Bandwagon effects – managers may be
branded as conservative if they don’t follow a
M&A trend; shareholder pressure to merge or
acquire; the company may itself become a
takeover target.

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Target choice in M&A
Two main criteria apply:
• Strategic fit – does the target firm strengthen
or complement the acquiring firm’s strategy?
(N.B. It is easy to over-estimate this potential
synergy).
• Organisational fit – is there a match between
the management practices, cultural practices
and staff characteristics of the target and the
acquiring firm?

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Valuation in M&A
Getting the offer price correct is essential:
Offer the target too little, and the bid will be
unsuccessful.
Pay too much and the acquisition is unlikely to
make a profit net of the original acquisition
price. (‘the winner’s curse’).
Acquirers do not simply pay the current market
value of the target, but also pay a ‘premium for
control’.

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Integration in M&A
Figure 10.2 Acquisition integration matrix
Source: P. Haspeslagh and D. Jemison, Managing Acquisitions, Free Press, 1991

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Integration in M&A
Approaches to integration:
• Absorption – strong strategic interdependence and little
need for organisational autonomy. Rapid adjustment of
the acquired company’s strategies, culture and systems.
• Preservation – little interdependence and a high need for
autonomy. Old strategies, cultures and systems can be
continued much as before.
• Symbiosis – strong strategic interdependence, but a high
need for autonomy. Both the acquired firm and acquiring
firm learn and adopt the best qualities from each other.
• Holding – a residual category – with little to gain by
integration. The acquisition will be ‘held’ temporarily
before being sold on, so the acquired unit is left largely
alone.

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Strategic alliances
• A strategic alliance is where two or more
organisations share resources and activities
to pursue a strategy.
• Collective strategy is about how the whole
network of alliances of which an organisation
is a member competes against rival networks
of alliances.
• Collaborative advantage is about managing
alliances better than competitors.

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Types of strategic alliance
There are two main kinds of ownership in
strategic alliances:
• Equity alliances involve the creation of a
new entity that is owned separately by the
partners involved.
• Non-equity alliances are typically looser,
without the commitment implied by
ownership.

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Equity alliances
• The most common form of equity alliance is the
joint venture, where two organisations remain
independent but set up a new organisation
jointly owned by the parents.
• A consortium alliance involves several
partners setting up a venture together.

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Non-equity alliances
• Non-equity alliances are often based on
contracts.
• Three common forms of non-equity alliance:
 Franchising.
 Licensing.
 Long-term subcontracting.

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Motives for alliances
• Scale alliances – lower costs, more
bargaining power and sharing risks.
• Access alliances – partners provide needed
capabilities (e.g. distribution outlets or
licenses to brands)
• Complementary alliances – bringing
together complementary strengths to offset
the other partner’s weaknesses.
• Collusive alliances – to increase market
power. Usually kept secret to evade
competition regulations.

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Strategic alliance motives
Figure 10.3 Strategic alliance motives

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Strategic alliance processes
Two themes are vital to success in alliances:
• Co-evolution – the need for flexibility and
change as the environment, competition and
strategies of the partners evolve.
• Trust – partners need to behave in a
trustworthy fashion throughout the alliance.

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Alliance evolution
Figure 10.4 Alliance evolution
Source: Adapted from E. Murray and J. Mahon (1993), ‘Strategic alliances: gateway to the new Europe’, Long Range Planning, vol. 26, p. 109. www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal

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Comparing acquisitions, alliances and
organic development
Figure 10.5 Buy, ally or DIY matrix

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Comparing acquisitions, alliances and
organic development
Four key factors in choosing the method of strategy
development :
• Urgency – internal development may be too slow,
alliances can accelerate the process but acquisitions are
quickest.
• Uncertainty – an alliance means risks are shared and
thus a failure does not mean the full cost is lost.
• Type of capabilities – acquisitions work best with ‘hard’
resources (e.g. production units) rather than ‘soft’
resources (e.g. people). Culture clash is the big issue.
• Modularity of capabilities – if the needed capabilities
can be clearly separated from the rest of the
organisation an alliance may be best.

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Key success factors
Figure 10.6 Key success factors in mergers, acquisitions and alliances

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Summary (1)
• There are three broad methods for pursuing
strategy: mergers and acquisitions, strategic
alliances and organic development.
• Organic development can be either continuous
or radical. Radical organic development is
termed corporate entrepreneurship.
• Acquisitions can be hostile or friendly. Motives
for mergers and acquisitions can be strategic,
financial or managerial.

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Summary (2)
• The acquisition process includes target choice,
valuation and integration.
• Strategic alliances can be equity or non-equity.
Key motives for strategic alliances include scale,
access, complementarity and collusion.
• The strategic alliance process relies on co-
evolution and trust.
• The choice between acquisition, alliance and
organic methods is influenced by four key
factors: urgency, uncertainty, type of capabilities
and modularity of capabilities.

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