Case Study

Introduction

From the case study, it is clear that Nomura lacks a strategic post-acquisition model to integrate its European acquisition into the organizational culture. Several issues come into play. Firstly, it is the strategic fit between Nomura and Lehman. Strategic fit denotes the extent to which an entity matches not only its capabilities, but also resources with opportunities in the external environment (Garlichs, 2011). Profitable companies achieve strategic fit and backup their strategy with proper structures and activities, while not so successful companies usually show poorer fit. In that case, organizations strive to have the ideal fit to outperform those that do not (Mueller, 2011). Looking at the two organizations at hand, Nomura lacks a solid strategic fit to conquer the European market and that is why it is struggling in the post-acquisition era. In Japan, its principle market, the organization has the right strategic fit and that is why it is excelling. To excel abroad, Nomura must boost its resources to match the opportunities there. On the other hand, Lehman collapsed because of their poor strategic fit.

Secondly, there is the issue of organizational fit. The organizational cultures of the two firms differ markedly. Organizational culture dictates how things are done in an organization and it makes that organization unique from others (Alvesson, 2012). There are differences in the remuneration, employee rotation, and diversity.  Lehman paid its employees handsomely providing that its greatest asset was investment in talented human resources. On the contrary, Nomura’s employees earn much less than their Lehman counterparts; it relies on employee output rather than talent. Similarly, the firm rotates its top tier managers unlike Lehman did. In addition, in both organizations, employees are of the same race and thus lack diversity. In order to bridge these gaps, there is a need to first enhance diversity whereby Asian employees can work in Europe and at the same time, European employees can work in Asia. In addition, there is a need to ratify the pay of all employees so that there is fairness in the pay whereby employees are paid equally as per their level, skill, and output. The idea of employee rotation is costly and ineffective and should be discontinued. That way, Nomura will have a uniform organizational culture or fit that will help it move forward as soon as possible.

There is the issue of multiple stakeholders. There is a need to ratify the stakeholders so that the organization moves in the right direction without delay. This can be attained by ratifying the organizational culture to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page. This will help them know what they need to do at any given time and this will minimize negative energies but boost collective efforts.

Finally, in order to predict the success of Nomura in the post-transformation era, there is a need to engineer a post-acquisition evaluation department that is headed by an experienced manager. The manager should track the success of the merger in the organizational culture in the two firms, employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction. This would involve setting up daily report forms that track the work of employees that would be reviewed weekly, biweekly or monthly to assess the progress being made. Surveys should be used to assess customer/employee satisfaction levels. Amendments should be made on the go depending on the feedback. In addition, success will be tracked by an increase in the number of deposits, new customers and returning customers and improved sales of all products that the bank offers.