Cultural Challenges of Integration: Value Creation and Daiichi Sankyo's Indian Acquisition

In the first decade of 2000, major global innovator drug companies were acquiring or collaborating with generic drug companies. Daiichi Sankyo was the first major Japanese Pharmaceutical firm to test this 'hybrid' business model in early 2008 when it acquired a majority share in Ranbaxy, then the largest India-based generic drug company and a global generic drug manufacturer and exporter. At Ranbaxy, the acquisition was followed quickly by several leadership changes. Chairman/ CEO Malvinder Singh, the grandson of Ranbaxy's founder, resigned in May 2009; Atul Sobti who took over as CEO, resigned the following year citing differences with the Japanese company on the running of Ranbaxy. In early 2011, Ranbaxy President and Chief Financial Officer, Omesh Sethi also left the company. On the financial front, the Japanese firm booked a valuation loss of US$3.9 billion from the acquisition in the third quarter of its 2008 financial year and recorded a net loss of US$2.21 billion for that financial year. With the acquisition, Daiichi Sankyo was able to expand the scope of its global business and to lessen the concentration of its assets in Japan from 78.96% to 53.7% in 2011. However, in 2011, the Japanese firm had yet to reap the full benefits of its vision of a value chain based on an integrated hybrid business model. Was a transformational organizational change needed to realize this? The case study examines the cross-cultural challenges of integrating the two businesses as the leadership worked to implement the hybrid business model.

• Management skills
• Cross-cultural business relations
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Organizational behavior
• Marketing channels
• Strategy