Corporate Strategy and Strategy in a Multi-Business Firm 1. What is Danaher Corp’s corporate strategy? How does it create value? Ans: Danaher Corp’s corporate strategy is to grow by acquisitions. Their objective was to become “the most innovative and lowest cost manufacturer of the products and seek a market position with each product that is either first, second or within a very distinctive market niche” (as mentioned in the case) Their strategy and focus was on cutting costs and adopting a lean model of working thereby making the process efficient and increasing profits. They also focused on continuous improvement. They did this by implementing a uniform strategy of Danaher Business System across all their acquisitions to help develop world class quality, delivery and cost benchmarks and delivery superior customer satisfaction and profitable growth. This strategy helped Danaher group have its firms achieve top positions in the respective markets, it gave them a growth/ returns which were beyond the market standards and expectations and Danaher group was able to beat the economic slow down of 2008-2009 better than other conglomerates. 2. What are Danaher’s key resources? Ans: Danaher’s key resources was its uniform strategy of applying DBS, focus on innovation and growth with tools and processes for new product development, strategic planning etc. The four P’s – people, plan, process and performance were the key to their business model and corporate strategy. People- Talent assessment was a key process during the acquisition process, and they were quick in identifying and developing talent. Plan- with DBS they created a strategy plan for every business and followed it up with frequent and periodic reviews to ensure that the strategy was well implemented, and the goals were achieved Process- They designed process to ensure all their units followed Kiazen and followed the DBSO teaching. The president led by example thus setting a culture within the organization to drive sustainable improvement Performance- Danaher was completely performance driven and had enough checks and monitoring methods to ensure that the reviews gave a realistic feedback and organizations were on track to achieve the revenue and profitability targets. 3. What are the limits to Danaher’s corporate strategy? Ans: Some of the limits to Danaher’s corporate are a. Same strategy across various industries and companies in varied growth stage. The strategy was not designed to suit the particular industry and how it behaved to economic challenges. It also did not take into consideration the social complexities of companies that were acquired b. Fit: The process was so rightly fit to the current needs and trends and the process and plan did not leave the organization to change and adapt quickly to externalities. c. They did not look at externalities like a weakening economy, slow down in organic growth, slow down in number of acquisitions, changes in the dynamics of market for acquisitions, etc d. There might be a limitation in implementation of the DBS and uniform systems as the organization becomes large.