http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com We Stress Test Your Strategies Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:46:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/gerald-levin-apologizes-for-aol-time-warner-merger/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/gerald-levin-apologizes-for-aol-time-warner-merger/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:47:20 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/?p=1126 FINALLY, SOMEONE ADMITS A MISTAKE Over the years, we’ve been stunned to see how hard it is for executives to recognize and acknowledge mistakes. After all, everyone makes mistakes. The trick is to learn from them so you don’t repeat them, or, better yet, to learn from others’ errors so you never have to make those particular mistakes yourself. Despite the obvious benefits of learning from errors, the denial among executives runs so deep that, to pick a couple of examples from our book: ]]> http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/gerald-levin-apologizes-for-aol-time-warner-merger/feed/ 2 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/red-flags-for-comcast/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/red-flags-for-comcast/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:36:23 +0000 Ken Krushel http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/?p=1061 Even as Comcast celebrates gaining a controlling interest in NBC-Universal, there’s a flashing red light on the horizon warning of the company’s potential demise. This is a guest post by Ken Krushel, a senior alliance member of the Devil’s Advocate Group. Ken has held senior strategy positions at NBC, Paramount and MGM. He has consulted with Warner Brothers, Sega Corp., MGM and Lifetime Television. He was CEO of College Enterprises, Inc., which merged with Blackboard, Inc., to create the largest enterprise educational software company in North America. He also founded Proteus, Inc. a pioneer in marketing specialized subscription-based content for mobile phones.]]> http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/red-flags-for-comcast/feed/ 3 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/dell-pulls-the-trigger-and-shoots-itself-in-the-foot/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/dell-pulls-the-trigger-and-shoots-itself-in-the-foot/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:19:42 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/?p=848 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/dell-pulls-the-trigger-and-shoots-itself-in-the-foot/feed/ 1 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/kraft-cadbury-not-so-sweet/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/kraft-cadbury-not-so-sweet/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:04:19 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/?p=794 The Kraft plan to buy Cadbury hinges on synergies between their distribution channels, which brings up an ugly memory: the Quaker Oats purchase of Snapple for $1.7 billion in 1994, followed by the sale of Snapple three years later for just $300 million (accompanied by the departure of the longtime Quaker CEO). [You can hear an audio excerpt of our Quaker Oats case study at the Billion-Dollar Lessons website.] ]]> http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/kraft-cadbury-not-so-sweet/feed/ 1 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/perfecting-the-art-of-the-deal-2/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/perfecting-the-art-of-the-deal-2/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:50:54 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.billiondollarlessons.com/?p=225 download the entire article in PDF form.]]> http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/perfecting-the-art-of-the-deal-2/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/pfizer-wyeth-big-pharmas-bad-science/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/pfizer-wyeth-big-pharmas-bad-science/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:07:49 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.billiondollarlessons.com/?p=219 Let's say a pharmaceutical company is conducting clinical trials on a drug. Two trials find major problems. Several similar tests by others end in failure, too. Would the company get the drug approved? Of course not. Yet Pfizer is trying to drum up enthusiasm for its plan to buy Wyeth for $68 billion, even though its two other major acquisitions since 2000 have flopped and even though the track record for big M&A deals in the pharmaceutical industry is spotty at best. In the process, Pfizer is raising numerous of the red flags that, according to our research, can mean a strategy is in peril. Pfizer seems to be seeing synergies that aren't there; is underestimating the complexity that can come with additional size; may be paying too much; isn't learning from prior mistakes; isn't considering all its options; and is acting more because of problems in its core business than because of opportunities in a new one.]]> http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/pfizer-wyeth-big-pharmas-bad-science/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/iac-confessions-of-a-recovering-synergist/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/iac-confessions-of-a-recovering-synergist/#comments Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:01:11 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.billiondollarlessons.com/?p=140 Usually, when a synergy strategy falls flat, the people who put it together are pushed out and replaced by a team that unwinds the strategy, while deriding their predecessors as fools. Well, in the case of Internet conglomerate IAC, CEO Barry Diller has so much control that he didn't just engineer the flawed strategy, which covered a wide range of businesses from financial services to dating services. Diller also is sticking around for the unwinding of that strategy. He recently held a pretty thoughtful interview with the Wall Street Journal, explaining how he got things wrong. Diller says he realized IAC was "overly complex and unmanageable." (That shows up in our research as one of the most commonly overlooked problems. The complications that come with scale can, by the way, be foreseen and assessed before a strategy to achieve scale is pursued.) He adds that "every mistake we've made in acquisitions has been outside our essential spheres of expertise"--underscoring the difficulties that we found when companies thought they were moving into an adjacent market, only to find that the new market is too different from the existing market where they operate.]]> http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/iac-confessions-of-a-recovering-synergist/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/who-will-fail-next-we-have-a-better-question/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/who-will-fail-next-we-have-a-better-question/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:37:40 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.billiondollarlessons.com/?p=126 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/who-will-fail-next-we-have-a-better-question/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/bank-of-america-the-next-conseco/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/bank-of-america-the-next-conseco/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:43:02 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.billiondollarlessons.com/?p=124 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/bank-of-america-the-next-conseco/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/%e2%80%9cdeals-from-hell%e2%80%9d-heaven-sent-advice/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/%e2%80%9cdeals-from-hell%e2%80%9d-heaven-sent-advice/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:17:49 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://www.billiondollarlessons.com/?p=110 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/%e2%80%9cdeals-from-hell%e2%80%9d-heaven-sent-advice/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/riverdeep-and-houghton-mifflin-a-riverdance-or-just-riverdeep-doo-doo/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/riverdeep-and-houghton-mifflin-a-riverdance-or-just-riverdeep-doo-doo/#comments Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:57:33 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://chunka.com/BDL/2006/12/07/riverdeep-and-houghton-mifflin-a-riverdance-or-just-riverdeep-doo-doo/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/riverdeep-and-houghton-mifflin-a-riverdance-or-just-riverdeep-doo-doo/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/oshkosh-truck-corp-headed-for-crash/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/oshkosh-truck-corp-headed-for-crash/#comments Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:09:48 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://chunka.com/BDL/2006/11/18/oshkosh-truck-corp-headed-for-crash/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/oshkosh-truck-corp-headed-for-crash/feed/ 0 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/disney-pixar-a-horror-flick/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/disney-pixar-a-horror-flick/#comments Wed, 08 Nov 2006 02:02:18 +0000 Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui http://chunka.com/BDL/2006/11/07/disney-pixar-a-horror-flick/ http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/disney-pixar-a-horror-flick/feed/ 0