Cooperative Strategy

"In alliances, the partner companies join forces in pursuit of common goals without losing their strategic autonomy and without abandoning their own specific interests."

"The globalization process that most industries have been undergoing is forcing many companies to expand internationally as rapidly and extensively as possible. Alliances are one of the means through which this can be done."

"Competitive advantage stems from the resources that firms have developed. In this perspective, alliances can also be interpreted as a means through which to develop new capabilities and acquire skills from the other partner."

"Partnerships between non-competing firms are an alternative to more traditional forms of expansion such as greenfield investment or acquisition."

"The specific management problems raised by joint ventures can all be traced back to the same cause: the fact that, unlike wholly owned subsidiaries, they have more than one parent company."

"Vertical partnership introduces a fundamental notion not found in other forms of vertical relationships: the sharing of both information and profit."

"It sometimes happens that the combination of skills and capabilities possessed by firms operating in completely different industries give rise to new business opportunities."

"Firms must carefully assess the strategic advantages they expect to derive from collaboration to make sure that they outweigh the risk of leaking valuable technological expertise to rival firms."

"Quasi-concentration alliances make it possible to expand the potential market for the jointly produced product which benefits, in theory, from the sum of the partner firms' market shares."

"The optimistic view of complementarity suggests that it is a basis for durable synergies between partner firms which are engaged in a long-term "symbiotic" or "win-win" relationship."