Detroit blames Stuttgart. But others say Chrysler was already an accident waiting to happen. Either way the mess has given megamergers a bad name. But the board was certainly also aware that in buying another company you may destroy it. Happily, mergers and acquisitions aren't the only way to go for companies trying to quicken sluggish growth.
Strategic alliances can work as well or better.
Trying to create a competency your company lacks is costly, time consuming and often doomed to failure. If the deal doesn't work, dissolve it. In this issue we list the 40 companies that top their industries in partnership skills. This is a quality we think will take them far in the next few years. We needed Coke for that.