Dickeson--Becoming a Model Student

The current acquisition and merger mania is reminiscent of the late 1960s, when conglomerates pasted together disparate businesses with stock swaps. Most of those marriages failed in the '70s and '80s, when anticipated synergies didn't materialize and cash ran out.

Have we, in printing, learned from that history lesson—or are we doomed to repeat it? Will acquisitor companies slash mid-management personnel at the acquired companies to reduce overhead cost? If not, whence comes synergy? Central sales force? Or centralization for what is a collection of custom service/manufacturing enterprises—addressing a wide gamut of markets, of customer needs—lacking threads of compatibility?