|
Common Sense Advisory Blogs
|
|
|
|
Requiem for a Heavyweight -- Bowne Bows Out of Language Services
|
|
|
|
Bowne Global Solutions had a good run. It bought some of the most prized companies in the industry and formed the largest company dedicated to commercial translation and localization. In 10 years it grew through acquisitions but never really left a mark. If we had to summarize its 10 years in the localization industry for a tombstone, we would probably say "they did their job." When the numbers turned bad last year, Bowne & Co.'s CEO looked for the exit.
This deal is about scale, not vision. Lionbridge CEO Rory Cowan told us that acquisitions can be mutually transforming, citing the 2000 purchase of International Communications (Intl). That purchase married the vision of Intl CEO Roger Jeanty with the fiscal and business discipline of Lionbridge. But BGS had no Jeanty -- what it did have was desirable customers, feet on the street, and an infrastructure to serve them.
The parent company of Bowne figured out after a while -- and spending a lot of money-- that translation/localization was not its core business. It took its management team a while to discover what other companies like R.R. Donnelly and McMillan Publishing had painfully discovered in the past: language services do not cross-sell with publishing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Link To This Page
|
|
Bookmark this page using the following link:http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/Default.aspx?Contenttype=ArticleDetAD&tabID=63&Aid=175&moduleId=391
Do you have a website? You can place a link to this page by copying and pasting the code below.
|
|
|
Back
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|