Question

Write a paragraph about the common ways the three brand's mentioned (Quaker, Quality Dining, and Ford) failed with their acquisitions and provide a suggestion on what one company could have done better.

Answer 1

Quaker oats managed the Gatorade drink and though if they acquire Snapple, they can manage their drinks well. Despite being valuation of $1 billion, Quaker bought it for $1.7 billion. After just 27 months Quaker sold Snapple for just $30 million and at that point of time Quaker was suffering loss of $1.6 million on daily basis due to Snapple. The reason for facing losses by Snapple was that Quaker thought that they will cover the large retailers or market with Snapple drink but Snapple was the brand which was famous in small market and they were not able to advertise Snapple product properly. When Snapple was not able to cover market, its rivals in the market named coca-cola and pepsi launched new products and attracted the customers which gave loss to Quaker.

Ford acquisition with Tata Motors did not worked out as Ford did not accepted the deal in 1999 when Tata Motors were not able to sell their cars and offered their cars to Ford. In 2008, Ford went bankrupt and Tata motors acquired their Range Rover and Jaguar for $2.3 billion.

I am not able to find any records for Quality Dining.

With these two failed acquisitions, i can say that management made the bad decision in buying Snapple in case of Quaker and not buying Tata in case of ford.