Strategic alliances are often viewed as a strategy for growth and perhaps not always a strategy for economically challenging times. But many of the reasons that make strategic alliances a good idea in good times make them an even better strategy for uncertain times. What are these reasons to partner? Create greater value for customers. [...]
What do you think of, when you think win-win? Most business people will interpret that as "I win and my partner wins". Unfortunately quite a number will behave differently: "win-win means I win twice!" This, as you can imagine, does not produce sustainable partnerships. Smart business people will not stick with a losing proposition and [...]
The April meeting of the Silicon Valley/Norcal Chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals featured a panel discussion on Coopetition. It turns out to be as hard to pronounce as it is to do. The panel often struggled with every verb and noun form of it: Coopetive, co-opeting. It might have been humorous, but [...]
"Collaborative Innovation: Leveraging Strategic Partnerships for the Global Playing Field" Sunday, March 30, 2008 BlogTalkRadio: www.BlogTalkRadio.com/CoachforInnovation 6:00 p.m. Pacific/9:00 p.m. Collaborative innovation is rapidly becoming a key differentiator for organizations. But as enterprises rush to take advantage of global opportunities without effectively playing the strategic alliances card the risk of stifling innovation increases. Join Dee McCrorey, host [...]
A successful alliance program begins at the top with the support of the CEO. Like many other things, the CEO influences company culture, models the behavior, and sets the priorities in collaborative relationships. CEO support and that of the CXO staff fosters the environment where alliances can thrive and deliver results. When you look at [...]
Does your organization have a clear discipline in determining which strategy to pursue to achieve an objective? Build? Buy? or Partner? If you answered, NO - you are in the majority. Unfortunately. A few organizations do, however, and one Proctor & Gamble has had excellent results for exercising that discipline. In the year 2000, they [...]
This is a question I am frequently asked and one for continual debate. As far as I know there is very little published work on this topic, only fleeting references on the challenge. My opinion: there is no perfect answer but the best answer relates to what are you trying optimize? Functional silos tend to [...]
In the Eight Secrets webcast, we reviewed some research data indicating that higher performing companies were extensive collaborators. Here I'd like to share some thoughts behind a fundamental change in attitude towards collaboration and partnering that I've seen in past few years. Some years ago, companies would express their reason for partnering in terms of [...]
One of the major efforts I have been part of this past six months is developing a certification exam for alliance professionals for the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. Consumed, may be a better description of the time and effort that has gone into this initiative. The alliance with AMA and the promotional activities such [...]
With great relief, I can report the "Eight Secrets" webcast went well. The producer and technical staff at AMA made it easy. The producer commented it was well attended and one of the best received webcasts they have done in terms of the feedback survey results. Whew! Here is one of the viewer feedback comments: [...]