The CEOs of the large consumer goods companies face a double challenge: to respond to the threat of innovation on traditional businesses and at the same time to capitalize on these forces to develop tomorrow's business.This challenge implies that executives need to consider mergers and acquisitions as a strategic asset for growth-driven innovation.
In this study, we look at some of the challenges and examine how companies strategically use mergers and acquisitions to win the battle over the consumer.
Main findings of the study:
• From "holding control" to "holding the consumer". The digital revolution has transformed the world, and the data represents the new battlefield. This paradigm offers a significant advantage to agile, digital mobile assets that use consumer data to combat competition and overcome the traditional economies of scale and range. As a result, established companies on the market face the risk of loosing customers' loyalty, shortening the product lifecycle and erosion of market share.
• Rediscovering the business model.The disruptive potential of new technologies is amplified by changes in consumer behavior. Start-ups that challenge the current business model can build profitable businesses that were not simply feasible a few years ago, these new businesses stealing the market share of already established companies. Combined, these disruptive changes reduce input barriers to product development, reducing the cost of demand response and allowing the proliferation of direct product channels to consumers.
• Promise of cross-sectoral convergence. Progress in digital technologies and analysis changes how products and services are developed, delivered and consumed.Consumer products companies are currently facing non-traditional competitors that are strategically acquiring technologies to create new product offerings, a process during which they reconfigure competition.
You can download the full report here.
