Inside Cisco: The Real Story of Sustained M&A Growth
Author: Ed Paulson
List Price: $29.95
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ISBN: 0471414255
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (14 September, 2001)
Sales Rank: 135,186
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
A textbook for M&A managers
Please allow me to disclose my bias... I am a former Cisco M&A, or as Ed Paulson would say a
Cisco A&D (Acquisitions and Development).
And a disclaimer: These comments are my own, and represent my own opinions, not Cisco Systems's.To position Ed's book, let's first look at the current body of M&A research.
"We know surprisingly little about mergers and acquisitions, despite the
buckets of ink spilled on the topic. In fact our collective knowledge can be
summed up in a few short sentences", noted Joseph Bower in his article "Not
all M&A are alike - and that's what matters" (Harvard Business Review, March
2001). A year later, Roy Harris wrote in his article "A lesson before
buying: University executive-education programs tackle one of the business
world's toughest jobs: Teaching M&A",
"You feel the question taking shape in the opening lecture of Robert
Holthausen's "Mergers and Acquisitions" class. As the Wharton professor
recounts the problems with deal-making today, ticking off two dozen reasons
why mergers fail--from valuation errors to culture clashes--the discouraging
statistics fly by on the screen behind him. McKinsey says 74 percent of
deals fail to create shareholder value, KPMG says it's 83 percent. At last,
the inevitable hand shoots up in front: 'Is this going to be a class about
why we shouldn't acquire anybody?'" (May, 2002, CFO The Magazine for Senior
Financial Executives)
Paulson's "Inside Cisco: The Real Story of Sustained M&A Growth" provides a
well researched analysis on how to do successful M&As. I hope the book will
be used as a textbook at many American and international executive M&A
programs.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Insightful!
There's no reason to beat around the bush: This is not an objective history of Cisco. It is an unabashedly adulatory look at one of the most influential companies of the New Economy. If you're looking for a critical assessment of Cisco's business model and execution, look elsewhere. That does not mean that you should ignore Inside Cisco, however. On the contrary, we from getAbstract strongly recommend this book for its detailed dissection of Cisco's acquisition methodology, from its target identification and selection to integration and employee retention. Anyone in business would do well to read this book, study these processes and make them their own.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Growth Through Acquisitions
"To date, your book Inside Cisco: The real story behind sustained M&A growth is my favorite regarding the topic of mergers and acquisitions. I used to work at a Merchant Bank in Irvine doing financial analysis in connection with mergers and acquisitions for a summer and a lot of the work we did involved growth through acquisitions. Your book clearly explains a lot of the rationale behind M&A strategies."Douglas Lee
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