“Brand Warfare”
by David F. D’Alessandro
McGraw-Hill, 2001
Noontime comes, you are alone, and you decide it’s time to have a quick lunch. You mentally survey your myriad choices, then rule them out one by one – because you decide to go to your favorite restaurant across the street.
In my case, while searching for a suitable angle for this review, I thought of lunch with two divergent thoughts: one, do it quick and get it over and done with; or two, spend an hour in a familiar corner to collect my thoughts and give them sharp focus. My choice was Hunter’s Deli, a cozy restaurant with a European charm --designed to give one a touch of nature in the concrete jungle.
And since I was in the mood to get ideas on “branding,” I asked the owner-operator if the “ambience” was by design or by accident. What she revealed was a noontime lesson on branding. Hunter’s Deli was designed for the adventurous – those who want to try something new in European cuisine – with the feel of the woods to reinforce the message.
The constant inflow of expats, baby boomers and yuppies told me this is one “brand” that has succeeded in inspiring loyalty from its market segment.
That is precisely what the book, “Brand Warfare,” is saying: “The truth is that consumers need brands, both good and bad, to help them navigate a world in which their choices are almost infinite. The best thing that can happen to a brand is to become a kind of shorthand in consumers’ eyes for a host of great qualities that demand their loyalty and respect.”
The book is sub-titled “10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand,” and you would expect perhaps a ho-hum list of laws that simply summarize tried and tested strategies. This book is certainly a cut above the rest. It is written by a highly successful CEO who made an insurance firm, John Hancock, an exciting and audacious (not the cooly professional) company -- that soon led the New York Times to list is as one of the top 100 brands of the 20th century.
The book abounds with soundbites and quotable quotes – not because they bring to you the poetry and majesty of the English language – but because every statement is a wondrous vehicle for a rare insight from a successful CEO, who has made it clear that he tolerates no nonsense, but who extols superior ideas and does not withhold praises for fine business execution.
What makes listening to a CEO a rare treat is that you come face to face -- not with a marketing professional with all the predictable marketing jargon – but with a top honcho who shows the big picture. He “connects” politics with marketing. He unravels the distributors’ ploy to keep you hostage. He exposes some ad agencies’ agenda to keep you spending your advertising dollar (or peso, in our case).
“There’s a sucker born every 30 seconds,” he says of those selling sponsorhip ideas, paraphrasing American circus impresario P.T. Barnum who earlier gave the dictum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Don’t get him wrong. D’Alessandro has actually used sponsorships to the hilt – and with great impact on his market share.
D’Alessandro was a hotshot public relations man before he became CEO, and so he uses “brand” when he means “reputation.” In his mind, there is no distinction. A brand, he defines, is “whatever the consumer thinks of when he or she hears your company’s name.” Author Jack Trout would call this “positioning.”
The author minces no words when he declares: “The best brand equals the best product.”
He moves on to cover the ten rules. For example, the first rule, “It’s the Brand, Stupid,” is a take-off from the winning political slogan of Bill Clinton, which ran: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Later in the book, the author illustrates two important branding warfare strategies of, yes, Clinton.
He illustrates the first tactic, “It’s crucial to persuade people to think well of your company before you really need them to,” by citing the “insulated Clinton brand” that has survived the Monica Lewinsky misadventure. In other words, a company, like Clinton, should have a reservoir of goodwill from which to get support when the going gets rough.
The second advice, “Don’t allow your enemies to define you,” is a respected public relations tenet that, in the mind of D’Alessandro, has been elevated as a trusted marketing weapon. He cites the case of Michael Dukakis whose character has been defined for him by antagonist George Bush. The latter won the electoral contest.
Predictably, the author uses his experience as CEO of Hancock and how he made it such a successful brand – and we don’t begrudge him that. After all, reading him is like being with him at the board room – and seeing him tear apart mediocre ideas and hearing him bring out wisdom culled from the battlefield – with laconic lines like: “Brands cannot simply stand still” – and then enumerates for you brand names that have effectively become has-beens.
Readers, meet a consummate CEO, who has victories in the marketplace to earn for himself at least your valuable reading time.
Sunday, October 28, 2001
Sunday, October 21, 2001
Words capture the pulse and impulse of the times
“20th Century Words”
By John Ayto
Oxford University Press, 1999
The sub-title of this Oxford book says it all: “The story of the new words in English over the last hundred years.” And the book delivers what it promises. This is not only an enumeration of words that have risen from the horizon at the dawning and conclusion of the 20th century. It is as much an epic of the world – from the viewpoint of the English-speaking world – giving us glimpses of cataclysmic, earthshaking and trendsetting events. In this book, every word coined or that has gained popularity, has its own story to tell.
It is not only a case of lexicographers catching up with reality, the book says, but it is a case of “genuine change in public usage.” Read an interesting account on the initial revulsion over a four-letter word, its usage by famous authors – and then its increasing recognition – if not respectability (?) – proven by its inclusion in dictionaries. In the 60s, a word is called “Standard English” if it was written. Those that remained spoken – at home or in the streets – if they were touched by neither linotype nor offset, were not “standard.”
“Words are a mirror of their times,” the book declares, which adds that the editors recognize that a word exists once it gets printed or published. The proliferation of English words is a concern of 500 million people around the world – 400 million of whom are native English-speaking individuals, while 100 million use English as their second language (that includes us, Filipinos).
The book also gives the reader interesting accounts on words that were taboo or euphemisms. “Fat,” for example was no social stigma in the 19th century; it was, on the contraty, the standard for pulchritude then. Then “fat” became a “monstrous insult” at the close of the 20th century. One euphemism is suggested for “fat”: “circumferentially challenged”!
This Oxford collection, like all other Oxford books, could be the most authoritative source of new words that saw the light in the last century. What adds to its credibility is the structure where every word is shown employed by famous authors — including the day it was born.
For example, “brassiere” came into being in 1909, when it was first used by Vogue magazine. It was abbreviated into “bra” in the 1930s. Then, later in the sixties, we heard the joke that the bra was poised to sue flat-chested Twiggy for “lack of support.”
Another interesting feature in this book is the “conversion” of words – meaning, a noun being used as a verb, citing “garage a car” as an illustration. We have our own “Sinclair it” and our local “Kodak-an taka!”
In 1912, the word “yes-man,” the “man who agrees from self-interest or fear with everything put to him,” came into being. And, we may add, the yes-man has been with us since then. Elevated to virtue, saying yes by yes-men employ this excuse: “You can’t say no to the President.” Then they authorize the transfer of billions of pesos in what was clearly a case of plunder. At least, in recent history, a man surnamed Yasay said no to a former President.
Check out the 1940s, and you will read about words like “pin-up,” first used for Dorothy Lamour by Life, describing her as the “No. 1 pin-up girl of the U.S. Army.” Many more pin-ups later, there was Marilyn Monroe and, locally, there is Joyce Jimenez.
“Fibre optics” emerged into the verbal scene in 1956 (and we thought it was much later!), written up by the Times, which said: “If one beam of light can be transmitted along a glass tube, why not transmit detailed images along the same path?” Robert Kennedy was right: Ask “why not?” – not “why?” That one question has become the mother of inventions many times over.
And do you know when “Pac-Man” intruded into our consciousness? It was 1981, courtesy of a proprietary name of a computer game featuring a voracious blob-shaped character. Well, at home, media have christened one industrialist “Pac-Man” for the same reason.
Finally, in 1994, a fitting parting shot for this review, where did “mwah” come from? The Independent, in 1998 used it with effect: “He is half-Czech, half-Spanish, beautifully groomed, deliciously perfumed, around 60, and a great air-kisser, mwah, mwah!” You got it: the word is a representation of an air kiss. Close to home, a sixty-something Commissioner had no use for air between his lips and a lady commissioner – and so he was jolted by a rebuke: “Ano ba ýan, Lolo!”
Now you know why you shouldn’t miss this collection. The words capture the pulse – and impulse – of the world throughout the century that just came to pass. And, then, without warning, the words inspire you to remember local words and phrases that capture the nation’s temper and tempests. (dantemv@i-next.net)
By John Ayto
Oxford University Press, 1999
The sub-title of this Oxford book says it all: “The story of the new words in English over the last hundred years.” And the book delivers what it promises. This is not only an enumeration of words that have risen from the horizon at the dawning and conclusion of the 20th century. It is as much an epic of the world – from the viewpoint of the English-speaking world – giving us glimpses of cataclysmic, earthshaking and trendsetting events. In this book, every word coined or that has gained popularity, has its own story to tell.
It is not only a case of lexicographers catching up with reality, the book says, but it is a case of “genuine change in public usage.” Read an interesting account on the initial revulsion over a four-letter word, its usage by famous authors – and then its increasing recognition – if not respectability (?) – proven by its inclusion in dictionaries. In the 60s, a word is called “Standard English” if it was written. Those that remained spoken – at home or in the streets – if they were touched by neither linotype nor offset, were not “standard.”
“Words are a mirror of their times,” the book declares, which adds that the editors recognize that a word exists once it gets printed or published. The proliferation of English words is a concern of 500 million people around the world – 400 million of whom are native English-speaking individuals, while 100 million use English as their second language (that includes us, Filipinos).
The book also gives the reader interesting accounts on words that were taboo or euphemisms. “Fat,” for example was no social stigma in the 19th century; it was, on the contraty, the standard for pulchritude then. Then “fat” became a “monstrous insult” at the close of the 20th century. One euphemism is suggested for “fat”: “circumferentially challenged”!
This Oxford collection, like all other Oxford books, could be the most authoritative source of new words that saw the light in the last century. What adds to its credibility is the structure where every word is shown employed by famous authors — including the day it was born.
For example, “brassiere” came into being in 1909, when it was first used by Vogue magazine. It was abbreviated into “bra” in the 1930s. Then, later in the sixties, we heard the joke that the bra was poised to sue flat-chested Twiggy for “lack of support.”
Another interesting feature in this book is the “conversion” of words – meaning, a noun being used as a verb, citing “garage a car” as an illustration. We have our own “Sinclair it” and our local “Kodak-an taka!”
In 1912, the word “yes-man,” the “man who agrees from self-interest or fear with everything put to him,” came into being. And, we may add, the yes-man has been with us since then. Elevated to virtue, saying yes by yes-men employ this excuse: “You can’t say no to the President.” Then they authorize the transfer of billions of pesos in what was clearly a case of plunder. At least, in recent history, a man surnamed Yasay said no to a former President.
Check out the 1940s, and you will read about words like “pin-up,” first used for Dorothy Lamour by Life, describing her as the “No. 1 pin-up girl of the U.S. Army.” Many more pin-ups later, there was Marilyn Monroe and, locally, there is Joyce Jimenez.
“Fibre optics” emerged into the verbal scene in 1956 (and we thought it was much later!), written up by the Times, which said: “If one beam of light can be transmitted along a glass tube, why not transmit detailed images along the same path?” Robert Kennedy was right: Ask “why not?” – not “why?” That one question has become the mother of inventions many times over.
And do you know when “Pac-Man” intruded into our consciousness? It was 1981, courtesy of a proprietary name of a computer game featuring a voracious blob-shaped character. Well, at home, media have christened one industrialist “Pac-Man” for the same reason.
Finally, in 1994, a fitting parting shot for this review, where did “mwah” come from? The Independent, in 1998 used it with effect: “He is half-Czech, half-Spanish, beautifully groomed, deliciously perfumed, around 60, and a great air-kisser, mwah, mwah!” You got it: the word is a representation of an air kiss. Close to home, a sixty-something Commissioner had no use for air between his lips and a lady commissioner – and so he was jolted by a rebuke: “Ano ba ýan, Lolo!”
Now you know why you shouldn’t miss this collection. The words capture the pulse – and impulse – of the world throughout the century that just came to pass. And, then, without warning, the words inspire you to remember local words and phrases that capture the nation’s temper and tempests. (dantemv@i-next.net)
Sunday, October 14, 2001
Magsaysay legacy: A leader’s role is to keep hope alive
“My Guy, Magsaysay”
by Jess Sison
Full Circle Communications, 2001
William Shakespeare -- in “As You Like It” -- wrote: “All the world’s a stage, / And all men and women merely players: / They have made their exits and entrances.”
Leaders throughout human history are a fascinating study, especially charismatic leaders who would rise to the occasion at a defining moment in a country’s history.
In contemporary history, there is Nelson Mandela, the leader who spent almost half of his lifetime behind bars, but who emerged larger than life, united his people in South Africa, proved the truism that “one man with courage is a majority,” and ended apartheid in his country.
Lech Walesa of Poland, a charismatic labor leader, fired the imagination – not only of workers – but of the entire citizenry, thirsting for democracy and freedom. He articulated the fondest hopes of the Polish people, and the latter rewarded him with the Presidential post.
Close to home, we have, of course, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino whose lifelong opposition to dictatorship and whose death at the airport tarmac after “a shot that was heard around the world,” inspired the EDSA revolution that ended two decades of dictatorship. But, Ninoy never became President – unlike Mandela and Walesa.
But one Filipino charismatic leader became President, in what many political observers termed a “brief shining moment in the Philippine presidency.” It was all-too-brief because, on December 30, 1953, Ramon Magsaysay became President of the Philippines. On March 17, 1957, this much-loved leader died in a plane crash in Mt. Manunggal, Cebu, abruptly ending a Presidential watch, which has now become the stuff of legends.
The life and times of the late President have been chronicled in our history books, but such accounts only succeed in a caricature of the leader, depicting him on broad strokes or placing him within the backdrop of a specific historical period.
Thankfully, Jess Sison, former press secretary during the Ramos Presidency and my senior in community journalism, dug deep into his treasure chest of stories about Magsaysay and came up with gems and nuggets of stories in his book, “My Guy, Magsaysay.” The author has told these colorful anecdotes on many occasions, but I didn’t realize the stories would cover all of 141 pages in this elegant book.
Magsaysay was a master in image building. The author’s account tells much about the late President’s style: “During the campaign for presidency in 1953, Ramon Magsaysay became famous for jumping over canals. He had pictures every now and then in the newspapers showing him jumping over this or that canal. What people did not know was that, every time he jumped over a canal and the camera did not flash, he would retrace his steps … until the camera flashed.”
Off camera, Magsaysay was his charming self. Sison narrates an account when the President abruptly stopped a five-car Presidential motorcade – and asked the woman tending the store if she had some 7-Up (his favorite drink). There was an instant meeting beside the sari-sari store among wide-eyed barrio folk, hearing the President promising them that the gates of the Presidential palace would be open for them.
Magsaysay the guy truly endeared himself as the “common man’s hero.” One time, narrates the author, the President was speaking before a crowd in Cabanatuan City, and the rain fell. Instantly, someone opened an umbrella for “The Guy,” but he threw it away. A raincoat was offered, but was similarly rejected. And Magsaysay said in Filipino: “Why will I cover myself with a raincoat when you are all soaking wet … If you will get wet, I will also get wet. If you will get sick, I will also get sick like you.” A thunderous ovation followed, the author narrates.
Who wouldn’t fall in love with a leader like that, a natural – not those more recent leaders who only succeed in strutting about as poor copycats?
An analysis from an expert on leadership, Richard Hughes, illuminates Magsaysay’s incredible appeal. He said, “Transformation leaders are charismatic in that they are able to articulate a compelling vision of the future and form strong emotional attachments with followers … they form strong emotional bonds.”
Anecdotes abound from the memory of Jess Sison who, at age 23, was already a close-in reporter of Magsaysay. That explains why the stories have a sense of immediacy. The book is a well-planned and edited piece of literature, starting off with a photo essay and ending with that poignant photo where Magsaysay was tying his shoelace. The caption says it all, gripping our heart:
“A few hours before he died in a plane crash … President Ramon Magsasay ties his shoelace.” I would have added that he was preparing for an appointment with destiny.
If you miss the kind of Presidency that has real mass appeal, not the one contrived by a former actor, this book gives you a personal account of someone who was there while such Presidency was being shaped. The pictures show the young Jess Sison as truly an eyewitness to a leadership that has become legend.
People may debate the substance and style of the Magsaysay Presidency, but no one can dispute that “in one brief shining moment,” Filipinos knew how it felt to be heard, loved and backslapped by a leader who did not only master the art but who truly had the heart for the masses, as Jess Sison puts it.
Some may believe Harry S. Truman, former American President, when he said: “The President is a glorified public relations man, who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway”
But those who love Magsaysay, and those who miss his leadership would embrace this statement from John W. Gardner: “A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.”
The Shakespearean line ends: “And one man plays his part.” Magsaysay’s part was to show how to keep the flame of hope alive. From this our present leadership must take its lessons.
by Jess Sison
Full Circle Communications, 2001
William Shakespeare -- in “As You Like It” -- wrote: “All the world’s a stage, / And all men and women merely players: / They have made their exits and entrances.”
Leaders throughout human history are a fascinating study, especially charismatic leaders who would rise to the occasion at a defining moment in a country’s history.
In contemporary history, there is Nelson Mandela, the leader who spent almost half of his lifetime behind bars, but who emerged larger than life, united his people in South Africa, proved the truism that “one man with courage is a majority,” and ended apartheid in his country.
Lech Walesa of Poland, a charismatic labor leader, fired the imagination – not only of workers – but of the entire citizenry, thirsting for democracy and freedom. He articulated the fondest hopes of the Polish people, and the latter rewarded him with the Presidential post.
Close to home, we have, of course, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino whose lifelong opposition to dictatorship and whose death at the airport tarmac after “a shot that was heard around the world,” inspired the EDSA revolution that ended two decades of dictatorship. But, Ninoy never became President – unlike Mandela and Walesa.
But one Filipino charismatic leader became President, in what many political observers termed a “brief shining moment in the Philippine presidency.” It was all-too-brief because, on December 30, 1953, Ramon Magsaysay became President of the Philippines. On March 17, 1957, this much-loved leader died in a plane crash in Mt. Manunggal, Cebu, abruptly ending a Presidential watch, which has now become the stuff of legends.
The life and times of the late President have been chronicled in our history books, but such accounts only succeed in a caricature of the leader, depicting him on broad strokes or placing him within the backdrop of a specific historical period.
Thankfully, Jess Sison, former press secretary during the Ramos Presidency and my senior in community journalism, dug deep into his treasure chest of stories about Magsaysay and came up with gems and nuggets of stories in his book, “My Guy, Magsaysay.” The author has told these colorful anecdotes on many occasions, but I didn’t realize the stories would cover all of 141 pages in this elegant book.
Magsaysay was a master in image building. The author’s account tells much about the late President’s style: “During the campaign for presidency in 1953, Ramon Magsaysay became famous for jumping over canals. He had pictures every now and then in the newspapers showing him jumping over this or that canal. What people did not know was that, every time he jumped over a canal and the camera did not flash, he would retrace his steps … until the camera flashed.”
Off camera, Magsaysay was his charming self. Sison narrates an account when the President abruptly stopped a five-car Presidential motorcade – and asked the woman tending the store if she had some 7-Up (his favorite drink). There was an instant meeting beside the sari-sari store among wide-eyed barrio folk, hearing the President promising them that the gates of the Presidential palace would be open for them.
Magsaysay the guy truly endeared himself as the “common man’s hero.” One time, narrates the author, the President was speaking before a crowd in Cabanatuan City, and the rain fell. Instantly, someone opened an umbrella for “The Guy,” but he threw it away. A raincoat was offered, but was similarly rejected. And Magsaysay said in Filipino: “Why will I cover myself with a raincoat when you are all soaking wet … If you will get wet, I will also get wet. If you will get sick, I will also get sick like you.” A thunderous ovation followed, the author narrates.
Who wouldn’t fall in love with a leader like that, a natural – not those more recent leaders who only succeed in strutting about as poor copycats?
An analysis from an expert on leadership, Richard Hughes, illuminates Magsaysay’s incredible appeal. He said, “Transformation leaders are charismatic in that they are able to articulate a compelling vision of the future and form strong emotional attachments with followers … they form strong emotional bonds.”
Anecdotes abound from the memory of Jess Sison who, at age 23, was already a close-in reporter of Magsaysay. That explains why the stories have a sense of immediacy. The book is a well-planned and edited piece of literature, starting off with a photo essay and ending with that poignant photo where Magsaysay was tying his shoelace. The caption says it all, gripping our heart:
“A few hours before he died in a plane crash … President Ramon Magsasay ties his shoelace.” I would have added that he was preparing for an appointment with destiny.
If you miss the kind of Presidency that has real mass appeal, not the one contrived by a former actor, this book gives you a personal account of someone who was there while such Presidency was being shaped. The pictures show the young Jess Sison as truly an eyewitness to a leadership that has become legend.
People may debate the substance and style of the Magsaysay Presidency, but no one can dispute that “in one brief shining moment,” Filipinos knew how it felt to be heard, loved and backslapped by a leader who did not only master the art but who truly had the heart for the masses, as Jess Sison puts it.
Some may believe Harry S. Truman, former American President, when he said: “The President is a glorified public relations man, who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway”
But those who love Magsaysay, and those who miss his leadership would embrace this statement from John W. Gardner: “A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.”
The Shakespearean line ends: “And one man plays his part.” Magsaysay’s part was to show how to keep the flame of hope alive. From this our present leadership must take its lessons.
Sunday, October 07, 2001
Mergers and Acquisitions:Be with the winners, not losers
“Mergers and Acquisitions”
Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business School Press, 2001
Hyphenated names have been punctuating the corporate landscape -- Equitable-PCI, Bristol Myers-Squibb, PLDT-Smart, to name a few – rivalling the prominence of high-powered women executives resisting pressures to drop their maiden names in favor of the husbands’ not so famous appellations.
Reason: The marriage of two corporations – by shotgun or by consent – has not spared even our corporate world. Mergers and acquisitions (you must recognize them when they are abbreviated as “M & A” to be “in”) have actually been going on in key financial and business centers around the world.
Sometimes the two names survive in a “merger of equals.” Other times, one name survives and the other is consigned to oblivion, instantly telling us which management team members march in as conquering heroes and who settle for a “second class citizenship” in what was once their domain.
We read the outcomes of these highly dramatic mergers or acquisitions, — and about boards reorganizing to reflect the entry of the “new centurions.” In more mundane terms, we hear happy stories of friends being catapulted to CEO or COO positions, and hear sad tales of those who lose their plush offices, executive parking slots, executive elevator privileges or – worse, their shirts.
Locally, the high-profile mergers and acquisitions even had the Presidential finger dipped into them, transferring big sums of money to finance the corporate move – which is now the subject of a celebrated plunder case. You ask: Is it possible to have a merger from a purely business standpoint, bereft of politics?
That’s the problem. In the Philippine context, business and politics are hard to extricate one from the other. You, therefore, need – just this once – to detach yourself from the Philippine setting to learn the fundamentals and the finer points of this exciting game.
A book titled “Harvard Business Review on Mergers and Acquisitions” is an excellent piece of literature for you if you want to know any of the following: How to make mergers succeed, how to master the fine art of friendly acquisition, how to evaluate if you are paying too much for an acquisition, how to integrate two cultures in a merged company, how to save a merger that is about to collapse, and how to use the experts in merging, acquiring and integrating.
This is not a textbook on the M&A game, one that has acquired a mystique to business observers and spectators like many of us. This Harvard-published book has steered clear of the jargon that succeeds only in confounding, not enlightening, many of us. After all, we also have every right to know what is happening in boardrooms and golf courses.
Don’t miss the CEO roundtable discussion which features the “acquirers” and the “acquired” – particularly one whose company was acquired by Yahoo! for $3.7 billion; or an insurance firm which made two major acquisitions worth $2.2 billion; or a consulting firm which has made a $6.6 billlion takeover; and many more stories.
One chapter in the book offers some food for thought for acquirers: A “low premium purchase” does not necessarily result in a high return on investment. On the contrary, those who pay a high premium generate high returns, as shown by the book in 20 M&A deals.
Some say that the acquiring team should speak with “one voice.” Some featured CEOs and M&A experts disagree. Robert Aiello and Michael Watkins disagree: “Successful acquirers usually divide their deal team into two or three separate negotiating groups – managers, lawyers and investment bankers.”
The book has qualitative and quantitative analyses on any aspect of the M&A deal, and the you are actualy ushered into their strategic and tactical moves to the last detail. However, lest you come away wondering what the best strategy is, one chapter is wholly devoted to GE Capital. After assimilating more than 100 acquisitions for the past five years alone, GE capital has developed, in the process, a model on how to do it – and succeed.
GE Capital’s four consultants offer four valuable lessons: First, begin the integration process before the deal is signed; second, dedicate a full-time individual to manage the integration process; third, implement any necessary restructuring sooner rather than later; and fourth, integrate not only the business operations but also the corporate cultures.
This book is packed with the best strategies formulated to effect and sustain a successful acquisition. There are usually winners and losers in this game, but some smart acquirers have also achieved a “win-win” situation for the conqueror and the conquered. Whatever the case, make this subject personal: Don’t be caught in a situation where you are the loser. Begin reading this book.
Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business School Press, 2001
Hyphenated names have been punctuating the corporate landscape -- Equitable-PCI, Bristol Myers-Squibb, PLDT-Smart, to name a few – rivalling the prominence of high-powered women executives resisting pressures to drop their maiden names in favor of the husbands’ not so famous appellations.
Reason: The marriage of two corporations – by shotgun or by consent – has not spared even our corporate world. Mergers and acquisitions (you must recognize them when they are abbreviated as “M & A” to be “in”) have actually been going on in key financial and business centers around the world.
Sometimes the two names survive in a “merger of equals.” Other times, one name survives and the other is consigned to oblivion, instantly telling us which management team members march in as conquering heroes and who settle for a “second class citizenship” in what was once their domain.
We read the outcomes of these highly dramatic mergers or acquisitions, — and about boards reorganizing to reflect the entry of the “new centurions.” In more mundane terms, we hear happy stories of friends being catapulted to CEO or COO positions, and hear sad tales of those who lose their plush offices, executive parking slots, executive elevator privileges or – worse, their shirts.
Locally, the high-profile mergers and acquisitions even had the Presidential finger dipped into them, transferring big sums of money to finance the corporate move – which is now the subject of a celebrated plunder case. You ask: Is it possible to have a merger from a purely business standpoint, bereft of politics?
That’s the problem. In the Philippine context, business and politics are hard to extricate one from the other. You, therefore, need – just this once – to detach yourself from the Philippine setting to learn the fundamentals and the finer points of this exciting game.
A book titled “Harvard Business Review on Mergers and Acquisitions” is an excellent piece of literature for you if you want to know any of the following: How to make mergers succeed, how to master the fine art of friendly acquisition, how to evaluate if you are paying too much for an acquisition, how to integrate two cultures in a merged company, how to save a merger that is about to collapse, and how to use the experts in merging, acquiring and integrating.
This is not a textbook on the M&A game, one that has acquired a mystique to business observers and spectators like many of us. This Harvard-published book has steered clear of the jargon that succeeds only in confounding, not enlightening, many of us. After all, we also have every right to know what is happening in boardrooms and golf courses.
Don’t miss the CEO roundtable discussion which features the “acquirers” and the “acquired” – particularly one whose company was acquired by Yahoo! for $3.7 billion; or an insurance firm which made two major acquisitions worth $2.2 billion; or a consulting firm which has made a $6.6 billlion takeover; and many more stories.
One chapter in the book offers some food for thought for acquirers: A “low premium purchase” does not necessarily result in a high return on investment. On the contrary, those who pay a high premium generate high returns, as shown by the book in 20 M&A deals.
Some say that the acquiring team should speak with “one voice.” Some featured CEOs and M&A experts disagree. Robert Aiello and Michael Watkins disagree: “Successful acquirers usually divide their deal team into two or three separate negotiating groups – managers, lawyers and investment bankers.”
The book has qualitative and quantitative analyses on any aspect of the M&A deal, and the you are actualy ushered into their strategic and tactical moves to the last detail. However, lest you come away wondering what the best strategy is, one chapter is wholly devoted to GE Capital. After assimilating more than 100 acquisitions for the past five years alone, GE capital has developed, in the process, a model on how to do it – and succeed.
GE Capital’s four consultants offer four valuable lessons: First, begin the integration process before the deal is signed; second, dedicate a full-time individual to manage the integration process; third, implement any necessary restructuring sooner rather than later; and fourth, integrate not only the business operations but also the corporate cultures.
This book is packed with the best strategies formulated to effect and sustain a successful acquisition. There are usually winners and losers in this game, but some smart acquirers have also achieved a “win-win” situation for the conqueror and the conquered. Whatever the case, make this subject personal: Don’t be caught in a situation where you are the loser. Begin reading this book.
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