Bruce Nussbaum on why synergy is such an overrated concept, taking the DaimlerChrysler de-merger as trigger and arguing along design thinking lines:
Why do most mergers fail? Mostly because they are top down, not bottom up. CEOs and senior managers see synergies and benefits that matter little, if at all, to consumers. Daimler thought that injecting German engineering into Chrysler cars would make Chrysler customers happier. It didn’t. They couldn’t care less. It might have benefited Daimler to have done some serious design research among consumers before jumping into the merger.
I too would bet that when asking whether customers would like more (if necessary, yes, german) car engineering in their cars they would almost always voice a loud and convincing “yes, i will”. So the focus (when resarching business model innovations of all kind, btw) is clear, it isn’t market research or any hidden kind of assumption – it’s more asking the right questions. Following design thinking as a guideline (and leveraging flexible experiments i.e. prototypes mock-ups etc.) is an interesting option from this perspective as well …
