Why was a creative/design software company making such a large bet to acquire the leading player in enterprise analytics? Adobe understood that the future of marketing was uniting content creation with marketing analytics. For example, Adobe’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture in 2009 was seemingly off strategy and non-complementary. Adobe’s acquisition strategy is differentiated due to the fact that the company is not afraid to make large, bold bets, at same time dedicating the time and resources over a long period to ensure that these bets pay off.

The network effects of Adobe’s products also enhance its lock-in.ģ) Successful Acquisitions: Throughout its tenure, Adobe strategically selected acquisitions to enter into new markets, often choosing to buy versus build, and then subsequently successfully integrated those acquisitions. Adobe has an estimated 15 million paying subscribers today, evidencing the power of its integrated suite and the fact that Adobe is the standard. For example, Adobe’s Creative Cloud offering is currently $80 per month for the base business license, or almost $1k per year. What has been most unique about Adobe’s bundling approach is its ability to charge premium prices for the full subscription offering. Adobe has built on this strategy over time, culminating in the launch of its full product suite in 2003. The company understood that the customer of that time wasn’t seeking point solutions, and instead wanted an integrated software solution that could solve multiple needs. In its early years, Adobe quickly amassed a wide variety of capabilities and was able to bundle new offerings with existing products to accelerate adoption. 2) Ability to Bundle Products: Adobe has consistently been able to bundle its products into an integrated suite, while ensuring that value was strong enough for customers to pay a premium price for the bundle.

Adobe product suite