nissan
Renault Nissan / Daimler Benz Chrysler

1) The acquisition of Nissan by Renault is almost what we can call a “Win-Win” situation. But for me Renault is the most important winner of this fusion. Renault was struggling on the European market and had a bad image to the stakeholders (customers, investor, economical place,…). More than that Renault was only focused on the European market without any way of gaining market shares in the rest of the world. In the other hand Nissan was not the number one in Japan but was not the worst automotive company. The expansion of the company was blocked due to the VRA and the only way to gain new market share was to be able to enter in a partnership with a third part. At the end this is almost a 50%-50% situation but Renault was almost dead before this acquisition and after that the new group became a very competitive automotive company.

2) The acquisition worked because of the new strategy developed by Renault. Renault was very respectful for Nissan and the Japanese culture and the execution phase was smooth without a strong imposition of the Chief operating officer. A very good point that ends up saving cost and generating money is the contraction of the Nissan Keiretsu. By doing that sourcing of car parts and components was based on market with price negotiation. In the past the Keiretsu set the price and Nissan had to pay the (high) price. Sharing platforms was also a need in order to become more performing, limiting the expense and invests but also using the share resources (people, R&D, facilities, supply chain,…) at best as possible.

3) The way Daimler Benz communicated to their stakeholders about the merger was wrong… or not very fair. They paid cash this communication mistakes by losing trust.
Differing corporate cultures means a non alignment of shared values, relationship with external partners, customers. In the other hand and in that case that means a discontinuity with what was communicated to the