Synergy: Why Links Between Business Units So Often Fail and How to Make Them Work

By Andrew Campbell

Book Overview

For large companies comprised of multiple product groups or resulting from growth through mergers and acquisitions, the "S" word, synergy, is touted as a great strategic advantage, but more often than not turns out to be a mirage, as managers haggle over turf and the parent company lacks the skills or commitment to recognize, support, and sustain collaboration. So how does a company become more than the sum of its parts? Here, international strategy gurus, Andrew Campbell and Michael Goold, offer an incisive and highly practical approach to overcoming barriers to synergy, evaluating opportunities within and outside the company, establishing appropriate roles for corporate headquarters and business units, and fostering a commitment to collaboration at all levels of the organization.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738203106
• ISBN13: 9780738203102
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Worth Mulling Over

This is not a book that calls for underlining and highlighting, but it definitely has value as a basis for reflecting on various aspects of collaboration, and the failure of collaboration, within enterprises. The book is written strictly from the perspective of people and perceptions. It does not have a technical or a financial side and this was disappointing. It would have been more useful to have a book that fully integrated human, technical, and financial success stories and failure stories to present an integrated picture of collaborative work principles in a global economy using the Internet as the backbone for collaborative work. The book is well-written, the figures are useful, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to sit quietly on an airplane and think about the authors' subtitle: why links between business units often fail, and how to make them work.