“Walgreens was very strong in pharmacy, while Boots was very good at retail. In the case of the Walgreens Alliance Boots merger, it became clear early on that the three entities involved had different legacies. That can be difficult when the companies coming together have different approaches to business and different strengths and weaknesses. But through it all, the top of the company has always had an appetite for change.”Ĭompanies built on M&As have to constantly keep an eye on culture and ensure they are effectively communicating decisions down to the front lines at the store level, Sondergeld said. “Walgreens is a 110-year-old company, and its still family-owned. “We are fortunate that we have always had leadership that wants to change,” he said. Those values include examining how big transactions and changes will impact people, as well as being willing to accept change. Throughout all of this growth, Sondergeld said the family-owned company has maintained its core values even as the retail industry has gone through seismic changes. At the same time, Walgreens Boots Alliance has expanded into areas like pharmaceutical wholesale, providing medicine, medical supplies and other healthcare products to more than 110,000 pharmacies, health centers and hospitals. The company’s growth-by-acquisition continued in 2017 when it acquired Rite Aid, a Fortune 100 company that operates more than 2,500 stores across the United States. In 2014, Walgreens completed an acquisition of Swiss-based Alliance Boots, making it one of the largest companies of its kind in the world. Walgreens became the biggest retail pharmacy company in the United States through a series of acquisitions, including the billion-dollar purchase of pharmacy and convenience store chain Duane Reade in 2010. It is also a company built primarily through M&As with other retail chains that were themselves the creations of a series of M&As. In 2018, the company replaced General Electric on the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Walgreens Boots Alliance is a true giant of the global retail industry, with 415,000 employees spread across 25 countries and more than US$131 billion in revenues. As authorities in policies, culture and technology, we are always at the table, and it has always been accepted that HR was going to be a very big part of any M&A.” “We start with an integrated team that involves HR right at the inception stage. “A lot of companies involved in M&As bring HR in at the end of the process and you end up with a mess,” said Sondergeld, Vice President of Global Benefits and Mobility for Walgreens Boots Alliance. Tom Sondergeld chuckles a bit when he’s asked why Walgreens Boots Alliance has had so much success in its M&As when so many others have failed.
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