Impact of Scania and MAN Merger on Swedish Automotive Suppliers : Special Focus on Sourcing Strategy, Relationship Changes, and Strategic Response Mechanisms

Abstract: By the end of 20th century many industries including automotive supply industry have undergone significant merger and acquisition activity. Mergers and acquisitions have led to geographical expansions of OEM’s (Origininal Equipment Manufacturer) across country borders and across continents. This tendency can be explained by the pressure to manufacture better equipments and less expensive vehicles which lead to specialization and internationalization of the truck industry. Plus, these consolidation trends are still actual phenomena in truck industry and can bring structural and strategic changes in the supply chain. Apparently. these trends bring a challenge for automotive suppliers, which is how to sustain competitive market position after the merger of important customers. By using the example of Scania and MAN consolidation, this research adopts case-study method with qualitative approach. The intent is to clarify how the buyer–supplier re-lationship is influenced by post-merger sourcing strategy in the automotive industry, with the purpose to investigate and analyze supplier strategic response mechanisms against pos-sible impacts of post-merger sourcing strategy in truck industry. The findings emphasize the importance of sourcing strategy changes in achieving the motives of the merger. We also identify a set of specific supplier selection criteria that appear to cause changes in the sourcing strategy of merged OEMs which, ultimately, influ-ence their purchase decisions.Then it is observed that dimensions like interaction, power-balance, and collaboration in buyer-supplier relationships vary with regards to sourcing strategy changes. Together, the findings contribute to our understanding of the strategic reponse mechanisms like business reengineering and restructuring through which suppliers can improve their market-related performance and better postion themselves in front of the merging customers.