I just wanted to point you towards a good article on Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC Division written by David Wolf…link at the bottom of this entry.
There were two key fundamental benefits that Lenovo would gain from the deal – the first was obviously the $53 billion dollars of brand equity that was at their disposal for five years from the deal signing – vital for a Chinese company with international aspirations and virtually no brand recognition outside Asia – and the second was the well astablished sales/distribution network. Of course there was also the international management expertise that came with the IBM team.
Brand usage decision aside theough - mergers of large organisations even within the same country are notorious for being difficult in terms of culture clashes. When you then take two very different cultures and very different management styles the challenge is highly magnified. I am therefore not surprised to see significant management changes such as those we are witnessing now (and I think there have been other significant management changes since the deal as well).
It will be interesting to see what changes in strategy come about from the recent management changes. Can they really pull back though without losing a great deal of credibility, I am not sure.
Anyway – read David’s piece – http://siliconhutong.typepad.com/silicon_hutong/2009/02/the-lenovo-retreat.html
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Filed under: Corporate, Technology | Tagged: Branding, David Wolf, IBM, Lenovo, LinkedIN, M&A, Silicon Hutong
