On October 15, the winners of the 10th Ram Charan Management Practice Award were officially announced. Grandblue was honored among an elite cohort of winning companies, including Lenovo, Anta, Hisense, and Mengniu. Its case study, Grandblue Environment’s Strategic M&A and Systematic Integration: From “Physical Consolidation” to “Chemical Fusion,” received the Outstanding Award and was selected for the Harvard Business Review Chinese Case Library. Jin Duo, President of Grandblue, attended the ceremony as an invited guest.
Co-founded by Harvard Business Review China and globally celebrated management consultant Ram Charan, the Ram Charan Management Practice Award draws on a panel of judges from China’s leading business schools. More than 30 prominent professors and scholars evaluate and discuss corporate case studies from multiple perspectives to recognize Chinese business leaders whose management innovations offer insights others can learn from. Widely regarded as China’s premier accolade for management excellence, the Award centers on forward-thinking, pioneering management practices and serves as a high-level peer-learning platform for Chinese enterprises.
In a video address from overseas, legendary management thinker Ram Charan shared his message of congratulations to this year’s winners: “ Over the past decade, these awards have witnessed Chinese companies move from pursuing opportunities to building capabilities in depth. Whatever changes the times may bring, management wisdom grounded in real-world experience will always be one of the most reliable forces helping companies navigate business cycles. Looking ahead to the next decade, I hope to see more Chinese managers put their ideas into practice and deliver meaningful management results amid change and uncertainty. ”
Charan's view of next-generation leadership is unequivocal: leaders must do more than lead people and organizations - they must also roll up their sleeves and act as hands-on managers. Developing and proposing good ideas is only the first step. Choosing the right direction is a leader's responsibility, but a company's success ultimately depends on whether those ideas can be translated into tangible results. The ability to deliver results will be one of the most important capabilities for future leaders.
Grandblue Environment Strategic M&A: Management Insights for Sustainable Growth
Long-term studies by organizations including Harvard Business School, McKinsey, and KPMG indicate that global M&A failure rates have remained between 70% and 90% over an extended period. Against this backdrop, how has Grandblue achieved high-quality growth through multiple major acquisitions since its IPO? Grandblue Environment's more than 20-year M&A journey reflects a clear strategic cadence at every stage. The company entered the solid waste market through cross-industry expansion in 2006. In 2014, it executed a "David-versus-Goliath" acquisition to establish a nationwide footprint. By 2025, it had risen to become one of the top three companies in the solid waste industry. Each step was aligned with its broader strategic planning.
Grandblue’s M&A-led growth journey offers valuable insights for Chinese companies navigating saturated-market competition.
Lesson 1 : Strategic Resolve Is Critical to M&A Success
“Strategic M&A is an organizational capability that enables a company to navigate business cycles,” says Jin Duo, President of Grandblue. “For Grandblue, sustained growth through successive industry cycles has been rooted in two principles: developing in line with its strategy and pursuing acquisitions guided by that strategy. The company stays focused on its long-term direction, resisting the temptation of short-term opportunities and the distraction of market trends. Grandblue has made strategic M&A a key growth driver. Yet its approach goes beyond simply expanding the company's size. It follows a model in which strategy sets the direction and integration drives growth. Every acquisition target must serve the company's strategic plan - that is, acquire what the strategy requires, not simply what appears profitable.”
M&A inherently involves risk. However, during critical windows of opportunity, choosing not to acquire can be equally risky - and may even mean surrendering the initiative to competitors. When Grandblue acquired Canvest Environmental Protection in 2025, the industry had entered a mature phase characterized by competition for existing market share and a scarcity of new projects. In this new era, where operational performance is paramount, scale itself has become an important source of competitiveness. Greater scale enables stronger resource synergies, lower R&D costs, more opportunities to innovate, and more efficient coordination across management functions. Had Grandblue passed up the acquisition, its ability to shape its own strategic direction during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) would have been significantly constrained, depriving the company of a critical driver of future growth.
Lesson 2 : Integration Capabilities Determine the Quality of Growth
Many companies focus on how to execute an acquisition but pay little attention to what comes next: integration. Experience across numerous M&A transactions shows that integrating large acquisitions typically takes three to five years. Achieving a smooth transition is only the starting point. The real test - and the decisive factor in determining success or failure - lies in navigating the deeper complexities of post-acquisition management. The true value of M&A comes from the ability to integrate acquired assets deeply into the company's existing operating model, bringing external resources and internal systems together as a cohesive whole. Through strong operational integration, these assets can ultimately be transformed into sustainable core competitiveness. This is precisely how integration capabilities determine the quality of growth.
Successful integration begins well before a transaction closes. Companies must build the necessary foundations in advance, including organizational structures, management processes, and digital tools. Years of M&A-driven development and adaptation to changing market conditions have shaped Grandblue's corporate DNA, fostering a willingness to embrace change and an ability to innovate with agility. Building on these strengths, the company proactively launched a series of management reforms at the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), encompassing organizational optimization, digitalization, supply chain reform, and financial transformation. These initiatives laid the groundwork for managing a substantially larger asset base. Once each transaction was completed, Grandblue moved quickly to incorporate the acquired assets across the organization into its management system. It also worked to align business operations, technology, and corporate culture. Through a systematic approach to integration, the company sought to unlock the full value of its acquisitions.
A two-way process of cultural integration is central to realizing long-term value from acquisitions. Sustainable collaboration and high-quality growth can only be secured by forging shared understanding amid divergent practices, and developing a shared set of values through mutual adaptation.
Lesson 3: M&A Management Is an Organizational Capability That Evolves Through Practice
From small-scale acquisitions in 2006 to a “David-versus-Goliath” deal in 2014 and a transaction worth tens of billions of yuan in 2025, Grandblue has continuously strengthened and refined its M&A capabilities through successive transactions. For Grandblue, each acquisition is more than a standalone deal; it is an opportunity to build organizational capabilities. Experience gained in areas ranging from target asset selection to integration mechanisms is distilled into methods, embedded into organizational practices, and developed into capabilities. These capabilities are then further refined through subsequent acquisitions. The positive reputation Grandblue has built through successive acquisitions and integrations reinforces this cycle. It attracts new acquisition opportunities, lowers transaction and integration barriers, and creates further opportunities to put and improve its capabilities in practice. Through this iterative process, M&A management has evolved into a repeatable, adaptable, and sustainable organizational capability.
Grandblue’s more than two-decade M&A journey offers an answer to a fundamental question: What enables a company to succeed after an acquisition?
The answer lies not in closing the deal, but in what happens afterward - in how effectively the acquired business is integrated. As competition for existing market share intensifies, opportunities to expand through scale alone are becoming increasingly limited. The potential to create value through better management, however, remains. Grandblue’s experience gained from multiple M&A deals demonstrates that four elements are essential to success: strategic direction, advance investment in organizational capabilities, efficient integration, and cultural alignment. It is the way these elements reinforce one another that provides the foundation for navigating the high failure rates associated with M&A.