WHAT COULD WE LEARN FROM SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES IN ALLIANCES?

Abstract

ABSTRACT: For decades, alliances have been a strategic tool widely used by organizations to improve their competitiveness and achieve their corporate objectives. They have been used to reach targets as diverse as entering new market segments, developing new products, internationalization, improving customer service, ... Despite being frequently utilized, and in spite of the development and widespread recommendation of some best practices for alliance´s management, many studies show that more than half of all alliances fail. This document aims to identify the alliance practices that have been developed by certain companies, which allow them to achieve success rates far above those identified in the abovementioned studies. These companies have developed a specific "advanced alliance management", that gives them a competitive advantage. In this study the cases of four large companies - with excellent success rate in multiple partnerships - have been analyzed, to identify what kind of specific alliance competences have been developed by them and to propose recommendations potentially applicable in other companies to improve their future success rate. Key words: alliances, alliance success, alliance capabilities, alliance phases, alliances in large companies