In this week's blog, the article I chose titled " Why Did One of the Best U.S. Design Firms Sell Out to a Chinese Conglomerate?" from businessweek, talks about the reason why one of best U.S. design firm, Fuseproject, sells out
to a Chinese marketing group, Bluefocus. This management decision they have
made seems very interesting to me.
BlueFocus was established in 1996, has
become the biggest communication group around Asia. The headquarters are in
Beijing. The group’s major services cover Digital marketing, Public Relations,
Advertising, Media, and International Social Network Service. It is one of
the fastest growing communication companies in the world, with revenue of $560
million in 2013. As to Fuseproject, the CEO, Yves Béhar, is one of best
designers in the world today. Béhar is the archetypal designer as
entrepreneur, a talented creative with the business acumen to design products
for startups in exchange for an ownership stake. His big clients
include Nike, PayPal and Samsung. He also helped create the One
Laptop Per Child project for children in the developing world.
It is BlueFocus’s first acquisition in
America. So, why a design company sells out to a marketing group? Fuseproject
has its own reasons. The CEO, Yves Béhar said he is still CEO and he still
chooses their own projects and designs their own way. Fuseproject believes that
the capital gained from Bluefocus can enable them to explore the market of
Europe and Asia. Their current successful venture model needs to be tested to
see if it is a good model in other countries. The acquisition gives Fuseproject
the opportunity to expand their business using more resources. Yves Béhar says,
“It’s the difference between bootstrapping every agreement and every deal and
having more resources to continue what we do and extend it.”
According to the Financial Times,
BlueFocus will pay $46.7 million in cash for 75 percent of
Fuseproject, which was established in 1999 and now has about 75
employees in San Francisco and New York. BlueFocus believes this acquisition is
beneficial. It recognizes that design isn’t only about aesthetics, but can also
be the method by which businesses identify new markets. It will bring a
big amount of profit when they expand to markets in the world.
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