W h y s o m e c o m p a n I e s m a k e t h e
T he Misguided Use of Acquisitions
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| T he Misguided Use of Acquisitions Peter Drucker once observed that the drive for mergers and acquisitions comes less from sound reasoning and more from the fact that doing deals is a much more exciting way to spend your day than doing actual Indeed, the comparison companies would have well understood the popular bumper sticker from the "When the going gets tough, we go shopping" To understand the role of acquisitions in the process of going from good to great, we undertook a systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis of all acquisitions and divestitures in all the companies in our study, from ten years before the transition date through 1998. While we noticed no particular pattern in the amount or scale of acquisitions, we did note a significant difference in the success rate of the acquisitions in the good-to- great companies versus the comparisons. (See Appendix In contrast, the comparison companies frequently tried to jump right to breakthrough via an acquisition or merger. It never worked. Often with their core business under siege, the comparison companies would dive into a big acquisition as away to increase growth, diversify away their troubles, or make a CEO look good. Yet they never addressed the fundamental question "What can we do better than any other company in the Good to Great I world, that fits our economic denominator and that we have passion for" They never learned the simple truth that, while you can buy your way to growth, you absolutely cannot buy your way to greatness. Two big mediocrities joined together never make one great company. I L ea d er s Who Stop the Flywheel T he other frequently observed doom loop pattern is that of new leaders who stepped in, stopped an already spinning flywheel, and threw it in an entirely new direction. Consider Harris Corporation, which applied many of the good-to-great concepts in the early sand began a classic buildup process that led to breakthrough results. George Dively and his successor, Richard Tullis, identified a Hedgehog Concept, based on the understanding that Harris could be the best in the world at applying technology to printing and communications. Although it did not adhere to this concept with perfect discipline (Tullis had a penchant for straying a bit outside the three circles, the company did make enough progress to produce significant results. It looked like a promising candidate fora good-to-great transformation, hitting breakthrough in 1975. Then the flywheel came to a grinding halt. In 1978, Joseph Boyd became chief executive. Boyd had previously been with Radiation, Inca corporation acquired by Harris years earlier. His first key decision as CEO was to move the company headquarters from Cleveland to Melbourne, Florida-Radiation's hometown, and the location of Boyd's house and forty-seven-foot powerboat, the Lazy In 1983, Boyd threw a giant wrench into the flywheel by divesting the printing business. At the time, Harris was the number one producer of printing equipment in the world. The printing business was one of the most profitable parts of the company, generating nearly a third of total operating What did Boyd do with the proceeds from selling off this corporate gem He threw the company headlong into the office automation business. But could Harris become the best in the world in office automation Not likely. "Horrendous" sofhvare-development problems delayed of Harris' first workstation as the company stumbled onto the tlefield to confront IBM, DEC, and Then, in an attempt to jump right to anew breakthrough, Harris spent a third of its entire corporate net 182 Collins worth to buy Lanier Business Products, a company in the low-end word processing Computenvorld magazine wrote "Boyd targeted the automated office as a key. Unfortunately, for Harris, the company had everything but an office product. The attempt to design and market a word processing system met with dismal failure out of tune with the market, and had to be scrapped before The flywheel, which had been spinning with great momentum after Dively and Tullis, came detached from the axle, wobbled into the air, and then crashed to a grinding halt. From the end of 1973 to the end of 1978, Harris beat the market by more than five times. But from the end of 1978 to the end of 1983, Harris fell 39 percent behind the market, and by 1988 it had fallen over 70 percent behind. The doom loop replaced the flywheel. Download 3.69 Mb. Share with your friends:
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