Category Archive: Strategy
A healthy capital system is an important ingredient for European competitiveness. Indeed, investors look for stability and predictability, which leads to the necessary flow of capital into our markets. Besides the key role government plays in creating confidence, there are three main actors in the capital system: “owners” who supply financial resources, managers who apply their expertise to build attractive returns on the owners’ investments, and boards of directors that oversee the process. … Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2013/05/improving-european-board-effectiveness-insights-from-participants-the-insead-international-directors-programme/
By Quentin Philippe & Karel Cool[i]
“I think it’s simply irresponsible to declare that we don’t need [shale gas] and we don’t want [shale gas] here in Europe”. Kurt Bock, CEO of BASF[ii]
“Je suis un peu déçu que les autorités politiques européennes ne prennent pas la mesure de ce problème”.… Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2013/03/europes-shale-gas-competitiveness-challenge-and-consequences-for-the-petrochemical-sector/
By Laurence Capron & Will Mitchell
One of the truisms of business life is that mergers and acquisitions often create more headlines than value. Some studies indicate that 70% of deals fail to achieve their objectives. In our research on 150 ICT firms (“Build, Borrow or Buy: Solving the Growth Dilemma”, Harvard Business Review Press… Read more, 2012), only 27% of the responding firms reported they were able to extract the value that they wanted to achieve from their target firms’ capabilities following their acquisitions.
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2012/12/warning-against-binge-buying-when-is-ma-the-right-answer-to-your-growth-challenges/
By Laurence Capron & Will Mitchell
During the past decade, Chinese firms have become aggressive cross-border acquirers. Unfortunately they have been struggling to actually close their deals.
Some deals have failed because of national security concerns in the U.S., including CNOOC’s attempt to purchase Unocal in 2005 and Huawei’s attempt to buy 3Leaf Systems in 2011.… Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2012/11/why-chinese-firms-cross-border-deals-fall-apart/
Government and business organizations are different in important ways (for instance, one of them is not a democracy), but a political campaign has some useful lessons for leaders of any organization. While the balance of power in democratic governments can lead to deadlock and painfully slow consensus building (in their steady state), the “simplicity” of elections (competing bodies, a deadline, a vote, a decision) is, in a strange way, closer to the reality of business organizations (at least those in flux and who face choices which cannot be made through pure hierarchical fiat).… Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2012/11/lessons-from-obamas-campaign-victory/
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently announced her plan to make acquisitions to revitalize and grow Yahoo. Her announcement generated a lot of reaction, but not so much about her ability to execute M&As — Mayer brings M&A experience gained at Google, and if she sticks with relatively small, educational acquisitions, failure on one deal will not break the company.… Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2012/10/yahoos-challenge-finding-a-viable-growth-path-via-acquisitions/
When we discuss about European competitiveness, there is often gloom and doom thinking about European non-competitiveness. We believe that such thinking conveys an over-pessimistic picture of Europe’s competences in many aspects of business. In this short text, we want to focus on European managerial competence and to underscore that there are executives in Europe who are exceptionally good at managing both the hard and the soft aspects of management to achieve competitive advantage.… Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2012/10/how-a-scandinavian-firm-can-teach-the-world-on-how-to-use-social-media-inside-their-organizations/
By Philippe Ombregt, Karel Cool, Nicolas Harlé
Mergers or acquisitions are often the preferred way to enter rapidly growing geographies such as the BRIC countries. Also, domestic companies in these geographies frequently use M&A’s to challenge foreign entrants or to become a player with global ambitions.… Read more
Permanent link to this article: http://blog.insead.edu/2012/10/merger-control-and-practice-in-the-bric-countries-vs-the-eu-and-the-us-the-timing/
