杜嘉瑞 Student No. 16300680257 INDEPENDENT ALL-ROUNDED PARTNERSHIIP NEW WAY OF ACQUISITION FOR BEACON Jia rui. du 16300680257 Course: English for Academic Purposes(Business) Date: 27 December 2017
Name: 杜嘉瑞 Student No.: 16300680257 1 INDEPENDENT ALL-ROUNDED PARTNERSHIP: NEW WAY OF ACQUISITION FOR BEACON Jia Rui, DU 16300680257 Course: English for Academic Purposes (Business) Date: 27 December, 2017
杜嘉瑞 Student No. 16300680257 Case: Learning to Play in the New "Share economy Beacon Car Rental(hereinafter referred to as"Beacon), one of the industrys most established and respected firm, has division on the latest acquisition-Village Car, which is a leading-edge car sharing company. During the acquisition, a heated debate is sparked on the acquisition strategy among Beacons board Dating back to the year before, Beacon had acquired a smaller rental car chain that had hundreds of locations in the Southwest--Starr, but mishandled because of not integrating well. In order to prevent the similar problem concerning the acquisition of village Car, the Senior VP, who led the integration of all Beacon's acquisitions, strongly believes that they should hold a clearly full integration. However, the CMO suggests that the acquisition would be a chance to access the developing share economy, as well as holding the Gen Ys philosophy- Not owning is liberating So the main problem of the case is how the acquisition of village Car should be implemented. Beacon needs to decide whether Village Car would be independent, developing in car sharing, or completely rename, being a subsidiary of Beacon According to the situation of the acquirer--Beacon, the following SWOt analvsIs could dig out the key issues ength) w(Weakness) Brand influence: Famous widespread Solidified model: Lack of flexibility Resources Abundant Lifelessness: Lack of vitality and innovation Operations: Full of experience in acquisition T(Threat) O(Opportunity) Competition: Fierce in rental market Share market: Enter booming new market High cost: Inefficient to integrate systems are econom ly: Catch up with the tide Overheated concept: Sharing being hype Internal reform: Suit the changing market Customer loss: Lose Village Car's customers Table 1: SWOT Analysis of Beacon
Name: 杜嘉瑞 Student No.: 16300680257 2 Case: Learning to Play in the New “Share Economy” Beacon Car Rental (hereinafter referred to as “Beacon”), one of the industry’s most established and respected firm, has division on the latest acquisition—VillageCar, which is a leading-edge car sharing company. During the acquisition, a heated debate is sparked on the acquisition strategy among Beacon’s board. Dating back to the year before, Beacon had acquired a smaller rental car chain that had hundreds of locations in the Southwest—Starr, but mishandled because of not integrating well. In order to prevent the similar problem concerning the acquisition of VillageCar, the Senior VP, who led the integration of all Beacon’s acquisitions, strongly believes that they should hold a clearly full integration. However, the CMO suggests that the acquisition would be a chance to access the developing share economy, as well as holding the Gen Y’s philosophy—“Not owning is liberating”. So the main problem of the case is how the acquisition of VillageCar should be implemented. Beacon needs to decide whether VillageCar would be independent, developing in car sharing, or completely rename, being a subsidiary of Beacon. According to the situation of the acquirer—Beacon, the following SWOT analysis could dig out the key issues. S (Strength) Brand influence: Famous & widespread Resources: Abundant Operations: Full of experience in acquisition W (Weakness) Solidified model: Lack of flexibility Lifelessness: Lack of vitality and innovation O (Opportunity) Share market: Enter booming new market Share economy: Catch up with the tide Internal reform: Suit the changing market T (Threat) Competition: Fierce in rental market High cost: Inefficient to integrate systems Overheated concept: Sharing being hype Customer loss: Lose VillageCar’s customers Table 1: SWOT Analysis of Beacon
杜嘉瑞 Student No. 16300680257 Specifically, as a distinguished brand, Beacon holds its own strength in social influence and resources. With a considerable market share, the acquisition would be guaranteed abundant resources, ranging from power like well-developed chain of cash flow to human resources like experienced acquisition manager. On the contrary, weakness of solidified model and lifeless culture may be the main problem. The failure of former acquisition reveals the weakness in lacking of flexibility, without which the incomplete acquisition would cause difficulty in merging. The solidified model of Beacon has a low rate of adaptation. As a result, Beacon lacks vital ity and the unwillingness to innovate However, as is said by the CMo, the acquisition would take the role of"game changer", leading to the opportunity to enter share market and catch up with the tide of share economy. Meanwhile, it may bring the company a chance to push the internal model reform and stand out from the increasingly severe competition in car rental. But the threats ave been foreseen by the broad at the meantime beacon urgently needs to stand out from the increasingly fierce rental market through expanding, while the senior VP points out the inefficiency in integrating cost enormously. In addition, among the conflicts among boarders, different uncertainties towards the concept have been reflected. The senior VP believe "sharing"is just a fancy word for "rental, while the CMO is afraid of the customers loss if"sharing?" fades from Village Car Given all those factors mentioned above, to keep Beacon and Village Car as two different brands belonging to the same group could be a better solution in the acquisition. a new concept of"Independent All-rounded Partnership"would be suitable to describe the relationship, which means Beacon and Village Car would mostly keep their own boards and internal running system to eliminate the cost in integrating to some extent, while completely share the resources with each other to maximize the benefit From Beacon's perspective, as the company has been the most established one in car rental industry but meets its bottleneck without enough vital ity, it is the time that Beacon should make its breakthrough by seizing the opportunity to expand into other areas. with the development of share economy, Beacon could reconstruct as "Beacon Group developing both business of car renting and car sharing, for which the relatively independent Village Car would play a significant role in leading the new sharing business With that brand new structure, what Beacon could do to support the broader group is
Name: 杜嘉瑞 Student No.: 16300680257 3 Specifically, as a distinguished brand, Beacon holds its own strength in social influence and resources. With a considerable market share, the acquisition would be guaranteed abundant resources, ranging from power like well-developed chain of cash flow to human resources like experienced acquisition manager. On the contrary, weakness of solidified model and lifeless culture may be the main problem. The failure of former acquisition reveals the weakness in lacking of flexibility, without which the incomplete acquisition would cause difficulty in merging. The solidified model of Beacon has a low rate of adaptation. As a result, Beacon lacks vitality and the unwillingness to innovate. However, as is said by the CMO, the acquisition would take the role of “game changer”, leading to the opportunity to enter share market and catch up with the tide of share economy. Meanwhile, it may bring the company a chance to push the internal model reform and stand out from the increasingly severe competition in car rental. But the threats have been foreseen by the broad at the meantime. Beacon urgently needs to stand out from the increasingly fierce rental market through expanding, while the senior VP points out the inefficiency in integrating cost enormously. In addition, among the conflicts among boarders, different uncertainties towards the concept have been reflected. The senior VP believe “sharing” is just a fancy word for “rental”, while the CMO is afraid of the customers loss if “sharing” fades from VillageCar. Given all those factors mentioned above, to keep Beacon and VillageCar as two different brands belonging to the same group could be a better solution in the acquisition. A new concept of “Independent All-rounded Partnership” would be suitable to describe the relationship, which means Beacon and VillageCar would mostly keep their own boards and internal running system to eliminate the cost in integrating to some extent, while completely share the resources with each other to maximize the benefit. From Beacon’s perspective, as the company has been the most established one in car rental industry but meets its bottleneck without enough vitality, it is the time that Beacon should make its breakthrough by seizing the opportunity to expand into other areas. With the development of share economy, Beacon could reconstruct as “Beacon Group”, developing both business of car renting and car sharing, for which the relatively independent VillageCar would play a significant role in leading the new sharing business. With that brand new structure, what Beacon could do to support the broader group is
杜嘉瑞 Student No. 16300680257 to make full use of its existing resources, combining the back-end, operations-fleet cquisition, maintenance, and disposal. More specifically, with the established name of Beacon, different branches in the group would share the credibility, which is important for participants in a rising market. What's more, the need of sufficient supply in sharing car can be fulfilled with the mature chain of Beacon. The spreading off-line rental centres may provide more convenience in car maintenance and inevitable labour allocation, cutting down the cost. With the smooth integration, human resources may also be gradually shared in the coming future, bringing more benefits to the group. For instance, those managers expertized in acquisition could help village Car expand in the market of share economy From Village Car's perspective, to keep the name of its own but expand it to show the group's element could be the very first choice. The suggested way is to add a tagline below the original logo, such as"BEACON for You', which would be easier to put into effect. In this way, as the CMO said, the group would bear less pressure of customer loss with the concept of"sharing"remained and lead the ordinary loyal customers of Beacon to the new business, especially among the youngsters Moreover, the independent Village Car could keep its energetic creative atmosphere and focus on technology development, which is important for a start-up to build its advantages, especially for the one in an emerging industry. Thus, a creative Village Car may solve the weakness of solidified mind-set and support the group's innovation, such as developing the real-time system and focusing more on intelligentizing, which may be ide bette as Gofun the dominant leader of sharing in China--emphasizes, technology is the main competitiveness in car sharing business, where merely to turn the rental mode into a more convenient one may not be enough. Market participants may build up real barriers by owning the advantage on ig-data analysis, and this is what Village Car can bring to the group. In this way, the emphasized physical experience may finally fit youngsters'preference of usage rather than ownership. As Kyle says, Not owning is liberating. Well-developed car sharing business may attract more customers The following case that e Bay successfully acquired PayPal in 2002, in which PayPal stayed independent and brought great benefit to the group, may be a useful reference in our Interview with Tan Y, Wang H, Henan, December 15, 2017
Name: 杜嘉瑞 Student No.: 16300680257 4 to make full use of its existing resources, combining the back-end, operations—fleet acquisition, maintenance, and disposal. More specifically, with the established name of Beacon, different branches in the group would share the credibility, which is important for participants in a rising market. What’s more, the need of sufficient supply in sharing car can be fulfilled with the mature chain of Beacon. The spreading off-line rental centres may provide more convenience in car maintenance and inevitable labour allocation, cutting down the cost. With the smooth integration, human resources may also be gradually shared in the coming future, bringing more benefits to the group. For instance, those managers expertized in acquisition could help VillageCar expand in the market of share economy. From VillageCar’s perspective, to keep the name of its own but expand it to show the group’s element could be the very first choice. The suggested way is to add a tagline below the original logo, such as “BEACON for You”, which would be easier to put into effect. In this way, as the CMO said, the group would bear less pressure of customer loss with the concept of “sharing” remained and lead the ordinary loyal customers of Beacon to the new business, especially among the youngsters. Moreover, the independent VillageCar could keep its energetic creative atmosphere and focus on technology development, which is important for a start-up to build its advantages, especially for the one in an emerging industry. Thus, a creative VillageCar may solve the weakness of solidified mind-set and support the group’s innovation, such as developing the real-time system and focusing more on intelligentizing, which may be significant to provide better users’ experience. As Gofun—the dominant leader of car sharing in China—emphasizes, technology is the main competitiveness in car sharing business, where merely to turn the rental mode into a more convenient one may not be enough1 . Market participants may build up real barriers by owning the advantage on big-data analysis, and this is what VillageCar can bring to the group. In this way, the emphasized physical experience may finally fit youngsters’ preference of usage rather than ownership. As Kyle says, “Not owning is liberating”. Well-developed car sharing business may attract more customers. The following case that eBay successfully acquired PayPal in 2002, in which PayPal stayed independent and brought great benefit to the group, may be a useful reference in our 1 Interview with Tan Y., Wang H., Henan, December 15, 2017
杜嘉瑞 Student No. 16300680257 point In July 8, 2002, eBay Inc. widened its rule over the Internet auction world with an agreement to acquire online payment service PayPal Inc in a $1.5-billion stock swap reminiscent of the headiest days of the dot-com boom, reported by Los Angeles Times In general, PayPal stayed independent from eBay but they helped with each other in ways that made the acquisition efficient: EBay provided the p2p transactions that PayPal needed to grow, which was to share the resources, and PayPal's online payment system made it easier for eBay's users to make their purchases, which was to share the technology--quite similar to the proposed situation of our case More specifically, eBay caught up with the tide of online payment. Just like Beacon, eBay was in the trouble of inefficiency and met its bottleneck during the period of acquisition. It is worth noting that eBays self-developed online payment Billpoint had come to an end with the acquisition. Thus, for those less flexible giant in a single market, self-developed innovation may be costly but less effective, while seizing the opportunity to expand into other areas by m&a may be significant With the acquisition done, e Bay made full use of its advantage of tremendous platform leading to solid support to the group by guaranteeing the spread of business. In result, about two thirds of the profit in Pay Pal was made through the platform that e Bay provided at first meanwhile PayPal's revenues rose 56%, to $166 million in the third quarter according to As for PayPal, the independent role maintained its own vitality and innovation Bringing in the technology of mobile payment, e Bay's 70% of the business was paid by Pay Pal. Moreover, owing to the permission of non-auction transaction growth, Pay Pal keep developing into full-fledged credit brand. In 2005, it was PayPal's revenue, up 47% and on track to hit nearly $ l billion that helped to make up for the shortfall during the phase o slowing down in the parent. The chart below indicates the take-off of Pay Pal then. Taking the acquisition between Pay Pal and Figcard in the same industry as an example, Pay Pal kept expanding owing to the unchanged board to Acquire Online Payment Service Pay Pal, L.A. Times, July 09, 2002, http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/09/business/fi-ebay9,accessedDecember2017 Kharif o r L, "Pay Pal Looks Like e Bay's Best Bud", BusinessWeek, November 15, 2004, p. 14
Name: 杜嘉瑞 Student No.: 16300680257 5 point. In July 8th, 2002, eBay Inc. widened its rule over the Internet auction world with an agreement to acquire online payment service PayPal Inc. in a $1.5-billion stock swap reminiscent of the headiest days of the dot-com boom2 , reported by Los Angeles Times. In general, PayPal stayed independent from eBay but they helped with each other in ways that made the acquisition efficient: EBay provided the P2P transactions that PayPal needed to grow, which was to share the resources, and PayPal's online payment system made it easier for eBay's users to make their purchases, which was to share the technology—quite similar to the proposed situation of our case. More specifically, eBay caught up with the tide of online payment. Just like Beacon, eBay was in the trouble of inefficiency and met its bottleneck during the period of acquisition. It is worth noting that eBay’s self-developed online payment Billpoint had come to an end with the acquisition. Thus, for those less flexible giant in a single market, self-developed innovation may be costly but less effective, while seizing the opportunity to expand into other areas by M&A may be significant. With the acquisition done, eBay made full use of its advantage of tremendous platform, leading to solid support to the group by guaranteeing the spread of business. In result, about two thirds of the profit in PayPal was made through the platform that eBay provided at first, meanwhile PayPal’s revenues rose 56%, to $166 million in the third quarter according to the report as reported3 . As for PayPal, the independent role maintained its own vitality and innovation. Bringing in the technology of mobile payment, eBay’s 70% of the business was paid by PayPal. Moreover, owing to the permission of non-auction transaction growth, PayPal keep developing into full-fledged credit brand. In 2005, it was PayPal's revenue, up 47% and on track to hit nearly $1 billion that helped to make up for the shortfall during the phase of slowing down in the parent. The chart below indicates the take-off of PayPal then. Taking the acquisition between PayPal and Figcard in the same industry as an example, PayPal kept expanding owing to the unchanged board. 2 Colker D., “EBay to Acquire Online Payment Service PayPal”, L.A. Times, July 09, 2002, http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/09/business/fi-ebay9, accessed December, 2017 3 Kharif O. & Sager I., “PayPal Looks Like eBay's Best Bud”, BusinessWeek, November 15, 2004, p. 14
杜嘉瑞 Student No. 16300680257 PAYPAL TAKES OFF PayPal has passed credit-card issuers but still trails far behind card brands NUMBER OF GLOBAL ACCOUNTS IN MILLIONS DISCOVER MBNA AMERICAN PAYPAL MASTERCARD VISA MORGAN EXPRESS ata: e Bay, Visa, Master Card Graph 1: Number of Global Accounts, 2005 Source: Robert D, "PayPal Spreads Its Wings, Business Week, May 23, 2005, pp. 105-106 In conclusion, the acquisition between Beacon and Village Car may be supposed to follow the main principle of all-rounded partnership and relative independence. The Independent All-rounded Partnership"would lower the cost and make full use of the strengths that Beacon and Village Car respectively own, ranging from abundant resources to technology innovation. The new way of acquisition would bring the group a huger market
Name: 杜嘉瑞 Student No.: 16300680257 6 Graph 1: Number of Global Accounts, 2005 Source: Robert D., “PayPal Spreads Its Wings”, BusinessWeek, May 23,2005, pp. 105-106 In conclusion, the acquisition between Beacon and VillageCar may be supposed to follow the main principle of all-rounded partnership and relative independence. The “Independent All-rounded Partnership” would lower the cost and make full use of the strengths that Beacon and VillageCar respectively own, ranging from abundant resources to technology innovation. The new way of acquisition would bring the group a huger market