Alliances: An Executive Guide to Designing Successful Strategic Partnerships

Strategic alliances are an increasingly important part of corporate activity, shaping organizational structure and contributing significant sums to company revenue.  As a result, the value of effective alliance design cannot be underestimated, providing the foundation for a company’s long–lasting success. Alliances combines theoretical knowledge from recent studies with real–life examples to create a thought provoking, informative text. Chapters cover key topics including: alliance forms and their characteristics, change management, building alliance frameworks, and the shape of future alliances. Alongside this comprehensive overview, an extensive checklist is included, to guide executives through alliance design. This sophisticated guide will help managers navigate the alliance arena, providing practical support for creating effective partnerships. By drawing on the best case studies from different industries around the world, Alliances offers insightful examples of the most innovative collaborations. This book will enrich your understanding of the challenges and opportunities involved in collaboration, and give you the knowledge and confidence to execute a successful alliance.

Introduction Acknowledgements 1 Strategic alliances: The control–trust dilemma 2 The Alliance Design Framework 3 Turning suppliers into allies 4 Contractual alliances: The customization of alliance design 5 The virtual joint venture model: Air France/KLM, Delta Airlines and Alitalia 6 Equity alliances and joint ventures 7 Multi–partner alliances: The more the merrier? 8 Managing the dynamics: Mutual adjustment and continuous negotiation 9 Designing and implementing strategic alliances: Art, science and craft 10 Open alliances: Towards the third generation of collaboration Appendix Financial models behind alliances Index

Ard–Pieter de Man is Professor of Knowledge Networks and Innovation at the VU University Amsterdam and Dean of Sioo, centre for organisation design and change. A leading alliance thinker, he was the first European to be elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. The author has been working as a consultant in this area for 15 years as well as teaching and writing in the academic field.