There has to be a “common culture” or at least a “cultural affinity.”
Successful diversification by acquisition, like all successful diversification, requires a common core of unity. The two businesses must have in common either markets or technology, though occasionally a comparable production process has also provided sufficient unity of experience and expertise, as well as a common language, to bring companies together. Without such a core of unity, diversification, especially by acquisition, never works; financial ties alone are insufficient.
One example is a big French company that has been built by acquiring producers of all kinds of luxury goods: champagne and high-fashion designers, very expensive watches and perfumes and handmade shoes. It looks like the worst kind of conglomerate. The products have seemingly nothing in common. But all of them are being bought by customers for the same reason, which, of course, is not utility or price. Instead, people buy them because they are “status.” What all the acquisitions of this successful acquirer have in common is their customers’ values. Champagne is being sold quite differently from high fashion. But it is being bought for much the same reason.
ACTION POINT: In any acquisition, make sure there is a common culture or a cultural affinity between the two entities.
The Frontiers of Management
The Successful Acquisition (Corpedia Online Program)
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker