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International Marketing Review
Customer relationship challenges following international
acquisitions
Christina Öberg
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Christina Öberg , (2014)," Customer relationship challenges
following international acquisitions ",
International Marketing Review, Vol. 31 Iss 3 pp. 259 - 282
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IMR-10-2012-0166
Customer relationship
challenges following
international acquisitions
Christina Öberg
Department of Industrial Management and Logistics, Lund
University,
Lund, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – An important task following international
acquisitions is to coordinate customer
relationships; that is, to organise customer interfaces and
possibly establish new relationships between
customers and the acquirer/the acquired party. Yet, such
coordination may prove to be problematic,
not the least since customers react to acquisitions. The purpose
of this paper is to describe and discuss
customer relationship coordination challenges following
international acquisitions. Focus is placed on
business-to-business customers in the country of the acquired
party.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on three
case studies representing overlapping
customers, customers of an acquired party new to the acquirer,
and customers new to the acquired party.
Non-standardised, face-to-face interviews were the main data
source, and were complemented with

secondary data such as newspaper items and annual reports.
Findings – Three main challenges are identified: internal
competition and cannibalisation; customers
not being interested in the new party; and the acquired party
demonstrating its independence
through customers.
Practical implications – Managerially, any coordination of
customer relationships needs to be
weighted towards risks for customer losses. It is important to
maintain ties to customers – sales and
maintenance staff, the product/service, etc. – if customers are to
continue with the firm. It is also
important that sales and maintenance staff see the benefits of
the acquisition.
Originality/value – While international acquisitions are a
frequent means to reach new markets
and customers, the problems of coordinating customer
relationships following them have not been
previously researched. Theoretically, the paper contributes to
research through categorising and
contextually explaining customer relationship coordination
challenges in international acquisitions.
Keywords International, Customer relationship, Integration,
Coordination, Acquisition
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
International acquisitions, that is, the takeover of the ownership
majority of a company in
a different country (Dunne and Ndubizu, 1995), are a frequent
way to reach new
customers or markets (Anand and Delios, 2002). Literature has
mainly seen it in this
regard: acquisitions as a means to internationalise a business

and, in addition to motives
of cost reduction in production, new capabilities, and risk
diversification, describe the
obtainment of customers in new geographical areas (Chen,
2008; Seth et al., 2002) or
representation on such markets where the acquirer already has
customers but not local
presence (Stumpf et al., 2002). These motives relate to customer
relationships as assets of
firms (Anderson et al., 2001; Johanson and Mattsson, 1985).
Customer relationships
denote how a buyer engages in repeated exchanges with its
supplier, and how
customers and suppliers potentially adapt to one another and
invest in their shared
relationship (Ford and Håkansson, 2006; Hallén et al., 1991).
Such relationships
represent comprehensive values (defined as future cash flows,
Blattberg et al., 2001;
Senn et al., 2013), not the least in business-to-business market
settings, where individual
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0265-1335.htm
Received 10 October 2012
Revised 20 August 2013
30 October 2013
Accepted 4 November 2013
International Marketing Review
Vol. 31 No. 3, 2014
pp. 259-282

r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0265-1335
DOI 10.1108/IMR-10-2012-0166
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customers may account for extant portions of a firm’s revenues
(Håkansson, 1982). In the
valuation of an acquisition target, such values become imprinted
in the price of the firm
(Koller et al., 2005).
To create further value and avoid any value destruction, the
coordination of

customer-related activities becomes fundamentally important
when a company enters
a new geographical market for customer purposes (cf. Kelly et
al., 2003). Coordination
refers to how to make companies and people work together
(Cavusgil et al., 2004;
Enberg et al., 2006; Glaro and De Oliveira Claro, 2004;
Netemeyer et al., 2004), and is
here used not only to capture decisions on how to organise
customer interfaces
(whether the acquirer is to establish relationships with
customers of the acquired party,
or the converse, and how to handle overlapping customer
relationships), but also to
highlight customer reactions thereto (cf. Boulding et al., 2005).
It relates to integration
in how the acquirer and the acquired party may choose to share
or transfer activities
(Haspeslagh and Jemison, 1991), but also marks the division of
customers, markets,
and their management between them.
As customers – both a company’s own and of the acquired party
– remain an
important motive for international acquisitions (Srinivasan and
Mishra, 2007; Stumpf
et al., 2002), and represent considerable values for firms (Arnett
and Badrinarayanan,
2005), it is important to understand the acquisition
consequences of their coordination.
Rydén (1972) and Öberg (2012) show how customers may be
lost following an
acquisition. Acquisition literature points to how integration (or
as addressed here,
coordination) is the source of value creation and destruction
(Haspeslagh and Jemison,

1987), and this paper therefore focuses on this phase of
acquisitions, yet links it to
whether the acquisition focused on the acquired or acquired
party’s customers,
and also whether such relationships overlapped before the
acquisition. Recent
literature indicates how acquisitions are conducted for many
different reasons and
need to be evaluated in this regard (Meglio and Risberg, 2010;
Weber et al., 2009).
The purpose of the paper is to describe and discuss customer
relationship coordination
challenges following international acquisitions. Focus is placed
on business-to-business
customer relationships in the country of the acquired party. The
objective of the
paper is to highlight and categorise such challenges.
Theoretically, the paper
provides a categorisation of customer relationship coordination
challenges in the
context of various international acquisitions and explains their
potential occurrence
through linking the challenges to pre-acquisition customer
relationships and motives.
The paper thereby broadens the scope of the traditional
acquisition literature
(Cartwright and Schoenberg, 2006; Meglio and Risberg, 2010)
through including the
customers’ point of view. Scholars such as Homburg and
Bucerius (2005) have pointed
to the limited amount of acquisition research that focuses on the
marketing dimension
of firms. Those few studies that exist on the matter (Capron and
Hulland, 1999;
Melewar and Harrold, 2000; Weber and Dholakia, 2000) take
the acquirer’s

perspective and mainly concern brand issues on consumer
markets. The studies also
do not focus on international acquisitions. In that international
acquisitions’ motives
frequently relate to markets and customers (Anand and Delios,
2002; Calipha et al.,
2010), how customer relationships constitute important values
of firms (Chan, 2005;
Spencer, 2004), and on the risk of customer losses following
acquisitions (Rydén,
1972; Öberg, 2012), customer relationship challenges are
specifically important to
study in their context. The coordination adds to research on
internationalisation
through highlighting consequences following the entry in a
foreign country
(Öberg and Tarba, 2013). For practitioners, the different
challenges are important to
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understand and also account for how better estimates and
planning can be made in
international acquisitions.
The paper is organised as follows. The next section presents the
theoretical point of
departure. It discusses international acquisitions and customer
relationships, introduces
the research gap, and presents the theoretical framing of the
study. The research
method is outlined and followed by three cases on customer
relationships in
international acquisitions. These are then discussed in terms of
relationship challenges
and coordination in the analysis section. The paper ends with
conclusions, along with
theoretical and managerial implications.
Theoretical background
International acquisitions
The literature on internationalisation refers to acquisitions as
one of several modes
to reach new markets (Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998; Hennart
and Park, 1993);
the acquisition literature describes the motives, integration and
performance of
(mergers and) acquisitions (Calipha et al., 2010; Cartwright and
Schoenberg, 2006).
In the research that targets international acquisitions
specifically, attention is brought
to acquisitions as entry modes to new markets (Harzing, 2002;
Slangen and Hennart,

2007), cultural differences on both a company and country level
(Brock, 2005;
Gertsen et al., 1998; Olie, 1994; Vaara et al., 2012), knowledge
transfer (Björkman et al.,
2007; Bresman et al., 1999; Javidan et al., 2005; Westphal and
Shaw, 2005; Zou and
Ghauri, 2006), and the value creation of such acquisitions
(Morosini et al., 1998).
A trend points towards globalisation, while companies become
increasingly
geographically and culturally diverse (Srinivasan and Mishra,
2007; Woodard and
Qingli Wang, 2005), and questions centre on how to keep
business local while acting in
a global world (Barmeyer and Mayrhofer, 2008; Goh, 2001;
Olins, 2001; Sarala and
Vaara, 2010; Vaara and Tienari, 2011). Table I provides a
chronological summary of
literature on international acquisitions.
Motives of entering into new markets (Barkema and Vermeulen,
1998) describe
pre-acquisition reasons for international acquisitions, while
knowledge transfer and
cultural differences relate to the post-acquisition integration
between the acquirer and the
acquired party, and also to the value creation. Research and
practice extensively refer to
international acquisitions as a means to reach new customers
(Kelly et al., 2003),
Years
Number of
articlesa Key foci

1963-1969 7 Internationalisation in specific countries (focus on
Europe and the USA)
1970-1979 17 Multinational companies; accounting standards
1980-1989 11 Comparison of entry modes
1990-1999 39 Antecedents for choosing entry mode; value
creation; culture
2000-2009 176 New markets; learning; culture: local/global
2010-2013 49 Emerging markets; HR, value; culture
Notes:
aEBSCOhost Business Source Complete was used as source for
the review. Publications
referring to “Consolidation & merger of corporations” in
combination with “International business
enterprises” were searched for through the thesaurus in the
database. The review found 299 articles.
The oldest was published in 1963 and the most recent one in the
summer of 2013 (last update of the
literature review was done on 10 July 2013). Please note that
the first and the last time periods do not
constitute a full decade
Table I.
Literature review
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where the acquired party’s established relationships constitute
important links to such
new customers. Other motives include low-cost production
alternatives, risk
diversification through being less vulnerable to the financial
situation in specific
countries (Trautwein, 1990), and the attainment of a
representation on a market where
the acquirer already has customers, but lacks direct contact with
them or administrates
them from abroad (Stumpf et al., 2002).
The integration between firms includes the degree of
integration: whether companies
are to remain autonomous or become absorbed into a shared unit
(Haspeslagh and
Jemison, 1991), and what departments or activities are actually
integrated (Andersson
and Mattsson, 2006), where companies, for instance, may
choose to integrate procurement
while keeping marketing activities separate (Öberg, 2008).
Integration further concerns
what direction products or processes are transferred: is it the

acquired party that is to
learn and adapt to the acquirer, or the converse (Bresman et al.,
1999), and hence relates
to knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer describes how one
party learns from the other,
or how knowledge is managed and distributed between the firms
(Birkinshaw et al., 2010;
Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000). Knowledge mostly describes
the technological skills and
advanced solutions (Ranft and Lord, 2000, 2002). Researchers
such as Lakshman (2011),
however, point to the importance of transferring cultural
knowledge; that is, the acquirer
and the acquired party need to understand differences in
management styles, as well as
national cultural differences, that impact the ways their
businesses are conducted. Öberg
and Tarba (2013) recently highlighted how knowledge on
customers and markets also
needs to be focused on. In the relation between knowledge
transfer and integration,
the transfer should be seen as part of the integration, while also
impacted by it, as well as
impacting the ability to actually take on products and processes
from the other party.
National cultural differences impede the ability to transfer
knowledge (Sarala and
Vaara, 2010) and the general integration of firms in
international acquisitions
(Barkema et al., 1996; Lubatkin et al., 1998). This is so, since
the basis for how to
understand the other party’s knowledge should not be too
separate, and since the
geographical distance makes it less possible to integrate
companies. As a solution,

researchers discuss integration only on local levels (Kanter and
Dretler, 1998) and the
maintenance of local cultures rather than the creation of a
global one (Barmeyer and
Mayrhofer, 2008; Goh, 2001). The differences in culture may
lead to lower levels of
integration between firms than if there is a cultural fit between
them. From the low
level of integration follows fewer changes, meaning that value,
while not necessarily
being created, also is not destroyed, thus indicating an
inconclusive relation between
integration and value creation (Weber et al., 2011).
Value from an acquisition could be regarded both in terms of
cost reduction and
revenue enhancement (Calori et al., 1994; Zollo and Singh,
2004). Cost reduction
following international acquisitions could follow from how
productions or resources
are achieved at a lower price (relocation to low-cost countries,
Nocke and Yeaple, 2008),
but would normally refer to the integration of firms. The
literature on international
acquisitions for the most part refers to revenue enhancement as
the creation of value
(Weber et al., 2011). This indicates that value relates to how a
firm manages to increase
its sales. Increased sales would be achieved through how the
acquirer sells, also to the
acquired party’s customers or vice versa. Studies on consumer
marketing and brand
management have discussed how brands, sales forces, and
marketing expertise may be
redeployed between firms (Balmer and Dinnie, 1999; Capron
and Hulland, 1999), while

a focus on customer relationships would concern how such
relationships are
coordinated. Recent research has drawn attention to how
acquisitions are performed
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for many different reasons and should be studied in that regard
(Meglio and Risberg,
2010). Through linking coordination to motives and pre-
acquisition customer
relationships, a better understanding of such coordination
challenges can be gained.
Customer relationships
Customer relationships target how a customer repeatedly turns
to the same supplier

(Grönroos, 2000; Munksgaard, 2010) and have been described
as creating benefits
(O’Malley, 2003). This is due to the lower cost of maintaining
than establishing
relationships, and leads to less uncertainty for both customers
and suppliers (O’Malley,
2003; Reinartz et al., 2005). In business-to-business marketing,
customer relationships
are referred to as each representing considerable (monetary)
values, and as often
leading to mutual adaptation between the customer and the
supplier (Blois, 2004).
Adaptation in the relationships further point to a resistance of
replacing them and
create inertia (Håkansson et al., 2009).
Researchers such as Reinartz et al. (2005), Blattberg et al.
(2001), and Rust et al.
(2004) discuss customer acquisition and retention and relate
them to customer value or
profitability. Conclusions are that it is important to develop a
communication strategy
to maximise customer profitability (Reinartz et al., 2005),
something that underlines the
management of the relationships (Payne and Frow, 2005;
Reinartz et al., 2004).
Palmatier (2008) discusses the influence of contact density,
relationship quality, and
authority on customers’ perception of the relationship. He
indicates that if there are
frequent shifts in contact persons, it is important to have several
contacts with the
customer, thus pointing to the importance of creating continuity
in the relationship
(Öberg, 2012). Acquiring a firm to access its customers would
constitute a hybrid

between customer acquisition and customer retention in how
present relationships of
one party may be intended to become relationships of the other
party. Following the
acquisition, the customer relationship management would entail
decisions and
implementations of how to coordinate customers. This includes
possible cross-selling,
the separation of relationship management between firms, and
the transfer or replacement
of products, sales staff, and service activities (Öberg, 2008). In
the international dimension
of customer relationship management, such issues as cultural
differences, whether
to treat all customers alike or act locally rather than “globally”
(Atanasova and Senn, 2011;
Harvey et al., 2003; Millman and Wilson, 2001), would need to
be taken into consideration.
While decisions may be made by the acquirer, it is not certain
that customers follow
these intentions (Öberg, 2012). In the understanding of
customers as part of business
relationships, they are described as actors that impact the
ongoing interaction and
make choices related to it, while also acting on their behalf and
potentially reacting to
any change in the business relationship (Halinen et al., 1999;
Harrison and Prenkert,
2009; Munksgaard, 2010). Such reactions include choices to
complement a relationship
with a new one, dissolve a relationship, or increase or decrease
its magnitude
(Havila and Salmi, 2000; Tähtinen and Halinen, 2002) and
impact the outcome, and
hence the value creation of an activity such as an acquisition.

This paper uses customer relationship coordination as a phrase
to capture the
integration of customer-related activities between the acquirer
and the acquired party
(cf. Homburg and Bucerius, 2005) and decisions on how to
organise parallel sales, etc.
while also including customers’ impact on such activities.
Coordination (Cavusgil et al.,
2004; Enberg et al., 2006; Glaro and De Oliveira Claro, 2004;
Netemeyer et al., 2004)
hence expands beyond the integration of the acquirer and the
acquired party
(Barmeyer and Mayrhofer, 2008; Weber et al., 2009). As
described by Piercy (2009),
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external relationships need to be reflected in the internal
coordination, and the
relationships with external parties also need to be coordinated
(Agarwal et al., 2012).
This is in line with Boulding et al. (2005) who describe
customer relationship
management implementation as including the coordination of
channels, technologies,
customers, and employees, and indicate how several parties
need to be considered.
The coordination is based on goals and is interwoven into
structures and processes
(Nadler and Tushman, 1997; Nordhaug, 1998), yet results from
the various parties’
reactions (Andersen and Drejer, 2009; Andersen et al., 2009;
Casciaro and Piskorski,
2005; Pearce and Robbins, 2008). This means that while the
acquirer may present its
intentions and provide structures and processes to accomplish
them, other parties will
impact the outcome (Agarwal et al., 2010).
A lack of research on customers in international acquisitions
As stated above, certain areas dominate research on
international acquisitions:
research on entry modes, integration including knowledge
transfer and cultural issues,
and value creation. In the studies, focus remains on the
acquirer, or the combined
acquirer and acquired party, and a shareholder perspective
prevails (Harris and
Ravenscraft, 1991; Markides and Ittner, 1994). A lacking

marketing perspective has
previously been indicated in acquisition studies that have also
pointed to its relevance
(Anderson et al., 2001; Homburg and Bucerius, 2005). Such
relevance would not the
least be present in international acquisitions, since they often
are conducted to increase
market exposure or comply with present customers’
internationalisation (Stumpf et al.,
2002; Öberg and Holtström, 2006), and since customer
relationships represent
important values of firms (Chan, 2005) while their continuation
is not ascertained
(Rydén, 1972; Öberg, 2012).
When acquisitions are discussed in the marketing literature,
focus largely remains
on brands and their integration (Capron and Hulland, 1999;
Homburg and Bucerius,
2005; Melewar and Harrold, 2000; Weber and Dholakia, 2000).
These studies also
mainly focus on consumer marketing, and thereby emphasise
market shares rather
than relationships with individual customers. Customer
relationships of the acquirer or
the acquired party are rarely discussed in the acquisition
literature (Öberg, 2013).
A literature review presented in Öberg (2013) points to how o2
per cent of the
acquisition research includes customers (183 out of 11,220
articles) and describes that
customers for the most part are seen as consumers affected by
unjustified price raises
in quantitative, economic modelling.
The reasons that few acquisition studies concern marketing

perspectives and
customer relationships may be explained by the theoretical
approaches taken in most
acquisition studies: finance, organisational theory, and strategy,
and the dominance
of quantitative research (Meglio and Risberg, 2010), which
makes it difficult to
grasp complexities of customer relationships (Holmlund, 2004).
To capture individual
relationships, how customers respond to acquisitions, and how
different pre-acquisition
relationships and motives may create diverse coordination
challenges, methods that allow
for in-depth studies of acquisitions, customer relationships, and
their consequences are
needed, as is the creation of a link between research on
customer relationships and
acquisitions.
Customer relationship coordination following international
acquisitions
Coordination would, based on how it includes integration, but
also reactions thereto,
constitute a major source for value creation or destruction
following an acquisition
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(cf. Haspeslagh and Jemison, 1987). It is proposed in this paper
that coordination of
customer relationships would be impacted by whether the
acquirer and the acquired
party shared customers before the acquisition, and whether
motives target the acquirer’s
or the acquired party’s customers (cf. Chen, 2008; Stumpf et al.,
2002). The coordination
would centralise around whether new relationships should be
established between the
acquirer and the acquired party’s customers, the converse, or be
kept separate
(cf. Andersson and Mattsson, 2006; Haspeslagh and Jemison,
1991 on degree and direction
of integration). The content of such relationships – what is
offered, who represents the
firm – and how the relationship can be characterised – density
and quality of interaction,
shifts in authority (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995; Palmatier,
2008) – might be changed to
achieve synergies (cf. Capron and Hulland, 1999), but may lead
to revenue losses
(Homburg and Bucerius, 2005) as a consequence of reactions.
Palmatier (2008) discussed
contact density, relationship quality, and authority as impacting

customers’ perception of
the relationship, while Öberg (2012) indicates how continuity in
staff, products, and other
customer relationships is important if the relationship is to
remain.
In the international acquisition, the customers, and the acquirer
or acquired party,
are placed in different countries. Compared to a domestic
acquisition, this anticipates
challenges of how to internationally coordinate customer
relationships. Based on the
literature on international acquisitions, cultural differences
would impact integration
decisions and knowledge transfer (Barkema et al., 1996; Sarala
and Vaara, 2010).
Figure 1 depicts this and possible items related to coordination
as proposed in this
paper. The following questions are asked:
. What coordination challenges arise from international
acquisitions in regard to
customer relationships?
. How are the challenges connected to different customer-
related motives and
pre-acquisition relationships?
Research method
The empirical data collection adopts a multiple case study
approach as the research
method (Eisenhardt, 1991). The reason for choosing the case
study methodology is that
Cultural differences

Pre-acquisition
Motives
Coordination
• Separate
• Overlapping
• Acquired party’s
customers
• Acquirer’s customers
• Establish relationship
between acquirer
and acquired party’s
customers • Changed content
• Changed
characteristics
• Keep separate
Customer reactions
• Establish relationship
between acquired
party and acquirer’s
customers
Figure 1.
Coordination items

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it enables the capturing of companies’ context (Welch et al.,
2011), and is well suited for
grasping changes on business relationship levels (Holmlund,
2004). Multiple case
studies enable the comparison between cases, and also enrich
the data through
providing additional explanations and examples. In the
rejuvenation of research on
acquisitions and international business, case studies
complement the dominance of
quantitative studies through providing new insights and
perspectives (Meglio and

Risberg, 2010; Welch et al., 2011) that allow for (tentative)
developments of theory
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007).
In order to capture different aspects of customer relationship
coordination in
international acquisitions (cf. Pratt, 2009 on sampling),
acquisitions with different
pre-acquisition compositions of customer relationships
(overlapping and separate)
and motives (motives targeting the acquirer’s and the acquired
party’s customer
relationships, respectively) were chosen. The acquisitions
studied are Toyota’s
acquisition of BT Industries, NetSys’ acquisition of Verimation,
and BT Industries’
acquisition of Raymond. Toyota’s acquisition included how the
acquirer and the
acquired party acted on overlapping geographical markets.
NetSys’ acquisition was
performed to make the acquired party’s customers become
customers of the acquirer.
BT Industries’ acquisition of Raymond aimed to establish a
global presence for the
acquirer’s customers, and thereby allow for the acquired party
to act as a local
representative in the relationships with the acquirer’s
international customers. Table II
outlines the three scenarios in terms of new or existing
customers of the acquirer
and the acquired party. Since the focus is on present customer
relationships of the
acquirer and/or the acquired party (or rather customer
relationships that existed prior
to the acquisitions), the scenario of reaching entirely new
customers is not discussed

in the paper.
Data sources consisted of interviews with managers,
maintenance, and sales staff
representing the acquiring and acquired companies, and
managers, procurement
staff and users representing their customers. Customer
relationships were chosen to
represent small and large firms in different industry contexts.
Since representatives
of product users and sellers, and managers of customers and the
acquirer/acquired
parties, were included among the interviewees, a strategic and
operational focus was
captured (Öberg, 2010). Choices of interviewees aimed to
provide as diverse a picture as
possible, include multi-informants from each company, and
enable generalisation
beyond industry-specific challenges for customers. In total 58
interviews were
conducted between 2003 and 2012, which allowed for the
capturing of instant and
delayed challenges of the acquisitions.
The interviews were performed using semi-open question frames
(McCracken,
1988), which allowed for follow-up questions and clarification.
Questions targeted,
without being limited to, the following areas: motives of the
acquisition, customer
relationship management of the companies and as part of the
acquisitions, length and
importance of individual customer relationships, customer
reactions, changes in terms
of magnitude and frequency of exchanges, changes in interfaces
(staff, products),

Customers of acquirer
Existing New
Customers of
acquired party
Existing Scenario I: Toyota/BT Industries Scenario II:
NetSys/Verimation
New Scenario III: BT Industries/Raymond
Table II.
Three customer scenarios
and the three cases
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and whether the customer started to look for and use
alternatives. In addition to
interviews, documents, including protocols, annual reports,
newspaper items, and
press releases were utilised (Welch, 2000). These aimed to
verify descriptions provided
by the interviewees (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000) and also
decrease risks of time-lapse
effects (Huber and Power, 1985).
In the analysis procedure, interview transcripts or notes, and the
secondary data
sources, were provided with first-order codes (Pratt, 2009) that
targeted activities as
part of the acquisitions and allowed for the production of
general case descriptions.
For instance, an interview statement describing the reasons for
the acquisition,
referred to the motives for the particular acquisition.
Descriptions of the acquirer or
acquired party were coded as contextual data, while accounts on
their customer
relationships were coded as pre-acquisition and post-acquisition
depending on whether the interviewee described conditions
before or following the
acquisition. Additional codes were developed based on what the
interviewees described.
The general case descriptions were structured to cover the
party in terms of industries, market positions, geographical
markets, and pre-acquisition
customer relationships, motives, integration (general and in
terms of customer
relationship coordination), customer reactions, acquisition
challenges, and outcomes.

The different sources (individual interviews or other sources)
here functioned to support
one another or possibly describe various perspectives (the
acquirer, the acquired party,
customers). The case descriptions were then provided to the
interviewees to discuss their
accuracy, and to colleagues of the author to discuss their
theoretical scope (Guba and
Lincoln, 1989; Hirschman, 1986).
In a second-order coding, focus was placed on coordination and
its challenges
following the acquisitions. Different issues that occurred during
and following the
coordination were extracted from the case descriptions and
categorised, to then be
compared with the items in Figure 1: cultural issues, changes in
relationships,
changes in ways to interact, and customer reactions. If
coordination meant product
replacement, for instance, this was related to changed
relationship content.
Difficulties that highlighted how the acquirer and acquired
party, or their customers,
did not share an understanding for the ways to do business were
categorised as
cultural issues. Additional codes were created for items that
could not be referred to
any of the categories in Figure 1 (cf. Locke and Golden-Biddle,
1997). Each issue that
meant coordination did not work to plan was described as a
coordination challenge.
This part of the analysis was performed in several cycles
moving between the
case descriptions, the raw data, and previous research (Dubois
and Gadde, 2002).

In a final step, the cases were compared to find similarities and
differences in
challenges among them (cf. Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt and
Graebner, 2007) and
provide contextual explanations based on individualities of the
acquisitions. This
part of the analysis hence provided links regarding the
challenges to pre-acquisition
customer relationships and motives (cf. Welch et al., 2011), and
also meant that main
challenge categories were produced. The links were established
using backward
tracing of explanations through comparing the individualities of
the acquisitions
and their challenges, and also using the raw data material to
find any type of
explanations provided by interviewees in each case. This part of
the analysis
allowed not only to highlight whether challenges differed based
on motives and
pre-acquisition customer relationships, but provided
explanations to these
differences (such as what motives or pre-acquisition customer
relationship
explained a specific coordination challenge) in the studied
acquisitions.
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Three cases on customer relationship challenges
Case I: Toyota’s acquisition of BT Industries
Toyota Industries Corporation acquired BT Industries in 2000.
The products that the
acquirer and the acquired party represented were lifters, while
they focused on
complementary product variants (counterbalanced and
warehouse lifters,
respectively). BT Industries was a company with a position in
most European
countries, and through a recent acquisition (see Case III) also
had a presence in the
USA. Toyota was located in Japan, but was represented through
a dealer network
throughout most of the world. Recently, before the acquisition,
both companies
had started to act within each other’s product niches. Toyota
acquired BT Industries to
create world-market leadership in the lifter market, and
specifically to penetrate the
European market further:

BT Industries has a competitive edge in warehouse equipment.
Developing its business on
a global scale, BT Industries has established firm bases,
particularly in Europe and North
America. Toyota and BT Industries complement each other in
market and product lineup.
With a view to becoming the world’s leading forklift
manufacturer, this is a perfect match of
strategic importance (Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd,
2000, p. 10).
Following the acquisition, decisions were made that the acquirer
and the acquired
party would continue with separate sales representation and
products. Toyota and BT
Industries would continue to sell to previous customers, rather
than establish
relationships with the other party’s customers, and shared
customers would need
separate contracts with the two firms. Hence, the coordination
aimed for a division
of market with as little as possible disturbance of present
customer relationships.
BT Industries would, however cross-facilitate its products to
Toyota. These products
were branded Toyota, but in addition to colour and brand, they
were the same as those
BT Industries produced in its own name.
Following the acquisition, Toyota dealers began to approach BT
Industries’ customers
with the BT-manufactured lifters at a low price. Since they were
independent dealers,
they grasped the opportunity created by the cross-supply, while
the acquirer had
intended a separation of customers. This caused internal

competition within the
Toyota/BT Industries group. Large customers of BT Industries
acted in a similar way.
They openly tried to play Toyota and BT Industries off against
each other regarding
the BT-manufactured lifters:
They [large customers] can turn to both BT and Toyota asking
for the same offer, and then try
to compare the prices, service offered, and so on, from both of
us. They know that the
warehouse lifter they receive from Toyota is actually a BT lifter
dressed in other colours, and
the reverse. They try to put themselves above the rules of BT
and Toyota (MD, BT Industries).
We saw that they had not talked enough with each other. It was
cheaper to buy BT products
from Toyota than from BT. This we pointed out for them
(Procurement manager, Volvo Group,
customer of Toyota and BT Industries).
The case points to how a non-integration strategy may lead to
customer reactions
(Öberg, 2012). It indicates how cannibalism and internal
competition (Keller, 2003;
Melkonian et al., 2006) may follow from an international
acquisition when geographical
markets and customers overlap before the acquisition. The
coordination mechanisms
provided by the acquirer were challenged by the other parties’
(customers and the
acquired party’s dealers) goals of lowering costs and increasing
sales, respectively.
In the particular case presented here, the acquirer and the
acquired party did not manage

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to reach any cost synergies in terms of shared distribution, nor
did they achieve any
increased sales (cf. Trautwein, 1990). The sales that did
increase for Toyota were
basically the same that BT Industries lost in terms of number of
lifters, while total
revenues decreased when margins were lowered. Customer
reactions offset the intended
positive effects of the division of market (Warnaby, 1999)
between the acquirer and the
acquired party.
Case II: NetSys’ acquisition of Verimation
NetSys acquired Verimation in the late 1990s. NetSys was a

sales agent for an IT
solution and acted on the Norwegian market. Verimation had
developed an e-mail
system and established customer relationships with several large
companies in
Sweden, and was in the 1980s the dominating supplier of such
systems, but had since
seen its position decline. Many of Verimation’s customers were
international firms,
allowing Verimation to expand abroad. NetSys planned for a
geographical expansion
and wanted to reach Verimation’s customers:
Verimation fits us like a glove, and for us the acquisition means
both financial and industrial
synergies. [y] Our products complement each other well, and
through using Verimation’s
2.5 million customers, we will become an effective international
group in the software market
(MD, NetSys, in Schander, 1998).
Following the acquisition, NetSys intended to establish
relationships with Verimation’s
customers. The coordination hence focused on establishing
relationships between the
acquirer and the acquired party’s customers. Intentions were
further to replace
Verimation’s system with NetSys’ solution, thus changing
products for the acquired
party’s customers. These intentions failed, however. The
customers wanted to continue
as before the acquisition, actively worked against the acquirer
and managed to achieve
support from the acquired party:
We had a close relationship with IKEA and had had for years.

So one day when I came to
them after we had been merged with NetSys for a while I was
told that: “You have to make
sure that we do not get any visits from anyone from NetSys.
You are greatly welcome, but
none of them. We do not want them here.” And that is not funny
after having had a customer
relationship with IKEA since 1985 (Sales manager,
Verimation).
Verimation continued to do business with its customers, but
shut out the acquirer
from the customer contacts. The acquired party distrusted its
acquirer and cultural
differences surfaced:
It was a marvellous clash between different cultures.
“Marvellous” underlined twice. There were
discrepancies all over. [y] We continued with our business, but
with limited acceptance from
the management team (Sales manager, Verimation).
The case describes an acquisition conducted to provide new
customers to the
acquirer (Trautwein, 1990; Walter and Barney, 1990). The
acquired party had customer
relationships on its domestic market, while the acquirer aimed
to establish
customer relationships on that market ( Johanson and Mattsson,
1985). Since it is the
acquired party that has the relationships with customers, two
types of relationships need
to be coordinated to accomplish this; the acquirer and the
acquired party need to
coordinate their activities, and the acquired party’s customers
need to connect to the

acquirer. The case indicates how customer reactions disabled
the acquirer’s integration
intentions. The rational for the customers to react to the
acquirer was how the acquirer
forced a change on them in terms of products (Öberg, 2008).
How interaction was
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pursued, the trust established between the acquired party and
the customers (Andersen
and Kumar, 2006; Blankenburg Holm, 1996; Huemer, 2004) –
that as a consequence meant
that the acquired party felt a stronger commitment to its
customers than the new owner,

and customers’ investments into present solutions (Håkansson et
al., 2009; Johanson and
Mattsson, 1985) impacted those decisions. The acquired party’s
decision was also
impacted by cultural differences (Fealy and Kompare, 2003;
Weber and Tarba, 2012)
between the acquirer and the acquired party that in turn
negatively affected coordination
(Kanter and Corn, 1994). As in the case of overlapping markets,
the customers’ goals,
but also investment in present structures, challenged intentions.
Case III: BT Industries’ acquisition of Raymond
BT Industries acquired Raymond in 1997. BT Industries held
the position of third
largest warehouse lifter manufacturer in Europe at that point,
while Raymond was the
largest supplier of such lifters in the USA. The acquisition was
the result of BT
Industries’ customers internationalising their businesses.
Customers had established
themselves in the USA, while BT Industries also partially
experienced how US
customers increasingly entered the European market:
We experienced globalisation, meaning that some customers
started crossing the Atlantic,
whether it was Wal-Mart/Home Depot moving outside the US,
or IKEA to North America or
Ahold to South America. Here we experienced trends that would
make a global presence an
advantage (Financial manager, BT Industries).
The acquirer wanted to strengthen its position on the US
market. Intentions were
to connect BT Industries’ customers in the USA (which were

mainly subsidiaries to
European firms) directly with Raymond. This required
coordination of BT
Industries’ and Raymond’s activities, but more importantly the
establishment of
relationships between BT Industries’ customers and Raymond.
BT Industries
negotiated global deals with its customers based on these plans.
The deals meant
that Raymond would provide lifters to the customers in the
USA, while BT
Industries would do so in Europe. Some customers did want to
connect to Raymond
as part of these deals, but Raymond was not interested in
actively participating in
them. Raymond’s rational for not connecting to these customers
(and encompass
themselves according to the intended coordination between BT
Industries and
Raymond) was to demonstrate its independence. The
management of Raymond
also claimed that customer preferences differed between Europe
and the USA so as
to avoid any integration of manufacturing:
When entering areas such as the right to manage product
development, or how customer
relationships are treated, or even purchasing – where inches or
centimetres should be applied,
and such matters – then it instantly becomes more difficult
(Financial manager, BT Industries).
You feel that Raymond is self-righteous; that they are “that”
good. But here they lose from
being that way. They should approach Volvo and ask: “How can
we get Volvo?” [y] I think

that Raymond feel that they should take care of their own
business. “This is what we do;
we do not want any Swedes [BT Industries] telling us”
(Procurement manager, Volvo NAP;
customer of BT Industries).
As for the global deals, the customers either wanted to have the
US-type lifters on that
market and European variants in Europe, or they asked for
similar variants on all
geographical markets. This largely related to whether the
customer’s representation
abroad was the consequence of acquisitions (e.g. Volvo that had
acquired Mack in the
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USA and asked for local variants) or organic growth (e.g.
IKEA, where European
variants were asked for on all geographical markets).
The case illustrates an acquisition as response to customers’
internationalisation
(Andersson and Mattsson, 2006; Öberg and Holtström, 2006). In
the acquisition, the
aim was to connect the acquired party with the acquirer’s
customers. As in Case II,
this required coordination between the acquirer and the acquired
party, and between
the acquired party and the acquirer’s customers. This case
points to the difficulties of
coordinating activities with acquired parties. In this particular
case, the geographical
distance played a part as did the relative size of the acquired
party (BT Industries
and Raymond had a similar number of employees before the
acquisition). Compared
to the other two cases, revenues, costs, and investments into
present structures
(Håkansson et al., 2009) were not the principal goals that
challenged coordination,
but rather self-interests of the acquired party and for customers:
how they had
internationalised their businesses.
Customer relationship coordination challenges in international
acquisitions
The three cases described above indicate coordination
challenges connected with
customer relationships in international acquisitions. Figure 1
described different items
of coordination (cultural issues, changes in relationships,
changes in ways to interact,

and customer reactions). The cases are discussed in relation to
these issues below and
also to see what coordination challenges could be explained by
specific pre-acquisition
customer relationships and motives.
Pre-acquisition customer relationships
While an international acquisition mostly would mean that the
acquirer establishes itself
on a new geographical market, it may already have customers
and representation there.
Toyota’s acquisition of BT Industries illustrates this, as does
BT Industries’ acquisition
of Raymond in regard to customers. In the former, overlapping
customers needed to be
coordinated and a division of market was suggested. In the
latter, the motive was to
acquire a local representation for the customers, and thereby
connect them to the
acquired party. Pre-acquisition relationships hence link to
coordination. As for challenges
and in the circumstance of overlapping pre-acquisition
representation, risks seem to be
internal competition and cannibalism (Keller, 2003; Melkonian
et al., 2006) follow. In the
case of Toyota’s acquisition of BT Industries, double
representation occurred on local
markets and with cross-facilitation of products, the acquirer and
the acquired party
became competitors. Customers tried to play the companies off
against each other,
and the acquirer’s independent dealers did not act in compliance
with the coordination
structures and processes provided by the acquirer. This in turn
indicates how
non-integration may also lead to customer reactions, and points

to how customers are
actors that make their own decisions (cf. Harrison and Prenkert,
2009; Munksgaard, 2010).
Overlapping geographical markets would, on the other hand,
mean that less cultural
issues emerge, both between the acquirer and the acquired
party, and between these
parties and customers, thus pointing to how pre-acquisition
customer relationships link
to cultural difference (if the acquirer is unfamiliar with the
market of the acquired party,
more cultural related issues would be expected).
Motives
The motives of an international acquisition suggest guiding the
degree and direction of
integration. If intentions are to reach customers on a new
geographical market,
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the acquired party’s customers would be the key concern, as
illustrated by NetSys’
acquisition of Verimation. If the aim is to provide local
representation to customers
on a foreign market, as depicted in BT Industries’ acquisition of
Raymond, focus
would be on the acquirer’s customers and how to connect them
with the acquired party.
Both these circumstances mean that new customer relationships
are intended.
The cases indicate challenges related to the acquired party and
the customers in
these circumstances.
NetSys’ acquisition of Verimation demonstrates that customers
were not
interested in connecting to a new party. Transferability of
customers anticipates
that customers follow the intentions of the acquirer (Anderson
et al., 2001), but if
customers do not see any benefit in doing so, it is not probable
that the customers
will connect to a new party or start using that party’s products.
Verimation’s
customers did not see the benefit of becoming customers of the
acquirer. This was
partially the consequence of how the product was to be
replaced, and partially the
result of how the culture of the acquirer was different than what

the customers
expected from its supplier. The former is the consequence of
how customers have
invested in present structures and adapted to suppliers’ products
and systems
(Hallén et al., 1991), while the latter relates to shared values
between customers and
suppliers, commitment, and trust.
In the creation of new relationships, there is the further risk that
the acquired party
demonstrates its independence through not connecting with the
acquirer or new
customers. Following NetSys’ acquisition of Verimation, the
acquired party and its
customers allied; this further disabled relationships between the
acquirer and the
acquired party’s customers. Here, the acquired party would lose
its market presence
and independence had the customers been transferred to the
acquirer. The acquired
party fighting for its independence was also seen in BT
Industries’ acquisition of
Raymond, where the acquired party claimed that its customers
were different to BT
Industries’ US customers. The acquired party did not want to
follow the guidelines
provided by the acquirer in global deals. Hence, when the
acquired party might also
benefit in terms of accessing new customers, the acquired party
may work opposite to
the acquirer’s intentions.
Cultural differences
Cultural differences have been said to impact the intended
degree of integration

(Barkema et al., 1996), but the cases do not point to such
considerations from the
acquirer’s point of view. Cultural differences only became
visible once the integration was
put into practice. As stated previously, cultural differences that
impact coordination
seem to be connected to whether or not the companies had pre-
acquisition
representation on the geographical market, and whether or not
they had customers on
the same geographical market before the acquisition, both of
which add explanations
to the literature on integration and cultural differences. Opposed
to previous research,
it also seems to have less to do with the geographical distance
between the acquirer
and the acquired party. NetSys’ acquisition of Verimation
indicates the largest cultural
differences, although the acquirer and the acquired party were
located in the two
countries with the least geographical distance (Norway and
Sweden, to be compared
to Japan and Sweden, and Sweden and the USA, respectively).
The cultural difference
could be regarded as a corporate cultural difference, however,
and points to how
corporate culture may have as decisive impact on coordination
in an international
acquisition as would national culture (cf. Weber et al., 2009).
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Customer reactions
Coordination was impacted by customer reactions to different
extents. Either
customers created their own rules and thereby offset the
intentions of the acquirer,
zor they opposed those intentions by objecting to them. This
points to customers as
actors and reactors (Öberg, 2013). Toyota’s acquisition of BT
Industries indicates how
customers opposed the idea of separate contracts with the
party (reaction), and how they played the parties against one
another to negotiate the
best deals (the customer as actor). In NetSys’ acquisition of
Verimation, customers
reacted to the integration through allying with the acquired
party, and telling that
party that it did not want to have anything to do with the
acquirer (see, e.g. the IKEA
quotation in the case description). In BT Industries’ acquisition
of Raymond, customers

either preferred the USA or the European variants of the
products, here linking
customers’ actions to how they themselves had internationalised
their businesses.
Coordination was affected in its realisation in all these cases.
The customer relationships changed as a consequence of the
coordination
(including also customer reactions). Such changes could involve
both the content of
the relationship (what is offered and who represents the firm)
(Öberg, 2008), and the
characteristics of the relationship (density, quality, authority)
(Palmatier, 2008).
Here, the cases suggest that changes to the content of the
relationships resulted from
the integration and were based on the acquirer’s decisions,
while impacted by
customers’ and the acquired party’s reactions, while changes in
the characteristics
followed from how customers acted and reacted. For instance,
the acquirer would
decide to also provide the acquired party’s products to the
acquirer’s customers (as in
Toyota’s acquisition of BT Industries), or replace products (as
in NetSys’ acquisition of
Verimation). The acquirer would also decide whether to keep
sales representatives, or
integrate them. Customers’ and the acquired party’s reactions
impacted whether such
changes were realised. As customers reacted, the characteristics
of the relationships
changed. The changes to characteristics included how a
customer chose to change
how it interacted with the acquirer/the acquired party, how it
used its authority not to,

and how it changed the magnitude of buying as a consequence
of the changes
(cf. Palmatier, 2008).
Concluding discussion
This paper describes and discusses customer relationship
coordination challenges
following international acquisitions. It categorises and explains
their potential
occurrence in various acquisitions through linking the
challenges to pre-acquisition
customer relationships and motives. The paper points to how it
is not enough to
consider the integration between the acquirer and the acquired
party (cf. Hopkins,
2008; Melkonian et al., 2011) nor cultural differences, but how
decisions are impacted
by other parties’ reactions, how coordination thereby is less
about control and more
about mutuality in goals and structures, and how multiple
parties – the acquired party
as well as external ones – need to be considered in international
acquisitions.
The theory section raised two questions: what coordination
challenges arise from
international acquisitions in regard to customer relationships?
How are the challenges
connected to different customer-related motives and pre-
acquisition relationships?
Three main customer relationship coordination challenges
emerge following the
international acquisitions studied: internal competition and
cannibalism, the acquired
party demonstrating its independence, and customers not being
interested in the new

party. They represent those different parties that need to be
coordinated: the acquirer,
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the acquired party, and customers. According to the cases,
different challenges may
appear together in an international acquisition; the acquired
party may want to
demonstrate its independence at the same time as customers are
not interested in
connecting to a new party, and the acquirer may make its
decision on whether or not to
integrate based on these parameters.

The challenges relate to pre-acquisition customer relationships
in terms of how
competition and cannibalism may be the consequence of
overlapping relationships
and decisions not to integrate sales, while the acquired party
demonstrating its
independence, and customers not being interested in the new
party, are linked to the
motives and the consequent aim to connect the acquirer with the
acquired party’s
customers, or the converse. Cultural differences would impact
the severity of the
challenges on customer relationships through the reactions of
the customers, but also
the acquired party. Figure 2 presents the challenges, what
parties they concern, and
how they relate to pre-acquisition customer relationships and
motives, respectively.
Theoretical implications
While international acquisitions are a frequent means to reach
new markets and
customers (Anand and Delios, 2002), the problems of
coordinating customer
relationships following them have not been previously
researched. Theoretically,
the paper contributes to research through providing a
categorisation of customer
coordination challenges in the context of different international
acquisitions. The paper
links internal coordination between the acquirer and the
acquired party to external
coordination with customers (Pearce and Robbins, 2008), while
pointing to the
importance of considering individualities of acquisitions
(Meglio and Risberg, 2010)

through linking challenges to pre-acquisition relationships and
motives (cf. Welch et al.,
2011). Findings point to how international acquisitions are
embedded in present
structures, how business relationships may be stronger than
ownership ties
accomplished through an acquisition (cf. Håkansson et al.,
2009), how goals need to
Pre-acquisition
Acquirer
Motives
Separate Cultural differences
Internal competition Playing the acquirer and
acquired party off against
each other; Cannabalism
Overlapping
Acquirer’s
customers
Acquired
party’s
customers
Demonstrates
independence
Allies with customers

Not interested in new
party
Reactions to changed
content of relationships
(customers dissolve their
relationships; decrease
magnitude of exchange)
Acquired party Customer
Figure 2.
coordination challenges
and relation to pre-
relationships and motives
274
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cohere, and how coordination intentions need to be accepted
both by acquired parties and
customers to actually accomplish intended integration. It further
indicates how
acquisitions become less like integration plans and more the
result of multi-parties’
activities and reactions, and that different challenges do emerge
based on pre-acquisition
conditions and motives of acquisitions. This in turn provides
new insights to strategy
literature that focuses on the acquirer, and to studies that treat
acquisitions as
homogeneous groups.
Managerial implications
Managerially, any coordination of customer relationships needs
to be weighted
towards risks for customer losses. Challenges lie in making the
acquirer and the
acquired party work for the same goals, transferring knowledge
about customers,
but also analysing whether it is actually possible to connect
customers and parties
the customers have not previously had relationships with. The
degree of freedom of the
acquired party needs to be weighed against conforming to
global deals and the risks of
customer relationship losses. It is important to maintain ties to
customers – sales and
maintenance staff, the product/service, etc. – if customers are to
continue with the firm.
It is also important that sales and maintenance staff see the
benefits of the acquisition.
Additionally, the acquisition needs to be weighted towards the

establishment of
a subsidiary on one’s own (Clark and Geppert, 2011; Finnerty et
al., 1986), as well as
other ways to enter new geographical areas and obtain
customers.
There are a number of questions that should be addressed before
any international
acquisition. First, what customers do the acquired party have
and how are they tied to
the acquired party in terms of contracts, retention, and longevity
of relationships?
Second, how do they overlap with our own customers? Third,
how do we handle
any kind of internal competition? Fourth, what is our motive
with the acquisition
and what integration is required to accomplish this motive?
Fifth, what content of
relationships – products, sales staff, etc. – can be maintained to
minimise interruptions
in customer relationships, and how does this affect expected
cost synergies?
Sixth, what items of the customer relationships are specifically
critical to maintain?
Seventh, how do we create communication plans to customers
and acquired party
representatives to ensure that they get an as positive as possible
view of the acquisition,
the acquirer, and those potential changes that are planned?
Eighth, what reactive
activities can we provide, and how do we follow up changes to
individual relationships?
Further research
This paper indicates challenges with coordination of customer
relationships following

international acquisitions. Future studies could expand this field
further through
studying how different acquisitions may highlight different
coordination issues, add to
the present findings, and verify ideas presented in the paper.
Such studies could target
other industry contexts than the ones presented in this paper,
additional customers, and
international acquisitions including for instance establishments
in developing countries.
The connection between different issues that challenge
coordination could be explored
further, where the present paper suggests links between pre-
relationships, culture, customer reactions, and coordination. In-
depth studies of
individual customer relationships would provide further
insights, where case studies
may capture and compare large, international customers with
local ones, for instance.
It would also be interesting to measure customer retention and
transferability in a large
number of cases. This would enable the prediction of how
severe various outcomes are.
275
Customer
relationship
challenges
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