On August 10, 1987, the largest cross-border merger in Europe made history when the two giants of European electrical equipment industry--- Asea AB of Sweden and BBC Brown Boveri Ltd. Of Switzerland--- merged to create Asea Brown Boveri (ABB).
The two men at helm are Percy Barnevik and Thomas Gasser. These men faced the challenge of building a new company on the foundation of two companies that had spent almost a century facing each others as arch rivals. With its goal to be global with technology and local in its customer orientation, ABB desires to be the most competitive, competent, technologically advanced, and quality-minded electrical engineering company in its fields of activity.
With the above in mind, ABB has to resolve three internal contradictions. That is, to be global and local, big and small and decentralized yet centralized. In order to resolve these contradictions so as to create real organizational advantage, it adopted several strategies.
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