Business Alliances Guide: The Hidden Competitive Weapon - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Porter Lynch is the author of Business Alliances Guide: The Hidden Competitive Weapon, published by Wiley.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

For those who think strategic alliances don’t work―or just don’t work for them.

Perhaps you’ve tried to develop alliances but for some reason they didn’t pan out. Or maybe you’ve been intrigued by alliances but finally were put off by the dangers they seem to bring.

Whether you’re discouraged or simply uneasy, Robert Porter Lynch’s Business Alliances Guide will convince you that collaborations are not just for multinationals like IBM and AT&T, who now recognize their value, and not just for the Japanese, who excel at putting them together―but for you as well.

Tapping the best strategic minds in the world and drawing on a wealth of successful international ventures, this singular guide reveals the secrets of alliance success, alerts you to the traps to avoid, and shows how you can use alliances to attain long-term strategic goals while minimizing risks. It presents a unique model―the Alliance Development Pyramid―that clearly outlines the steps to take to develop and maintain alliances that establish a profitable win/win situation between you and your partners. Following the model, you’ll learn how to:

• Gain critical top-level support for the alliance
• Find partners whose goals, strengths, and weaknesses complement your own
• Develop the right “chemistry” with alliance partners
• Build flexibility into the alliance structure to allow for change
• Manage conflict with partners and avoid litigation
• Consider cultural and political differences to make inroads internationally
• Structure different kinds of alliances to attain different objectives

Along the way, the guide dispenses with the myths that may have prevented you from engaging in the alliances in the first place. You’ll see that alliances enable both partners to maintain―not lose―control…encourage―not inhibit―innovation…act as a new competitive tool, not as a drag on competition…signal a new kind of corporate dynamism and not retreat.

Supported by a network of bulleted summaries, checklists, charts, models, and graphs, plus boxed-off tips and warnings that guide you toward the development of effective alliances, Business Alliances Guide provides you with a major new weapon that makes you a much more formidable player in today’s global marketplace.

Aus dem Klappentext

The rapid emergence of strategic collaborations as alternatives to the usual go-it-alone entrepreneurial ventures is evident everywvhere - from the growing collaborative efforts of such muultinationals as IBM, AT&T and Siemens, to Japan's continuing use of alliances to help maintain their enviable economic dominance. Equally evident is the failure of many companies to make these collaborations work, and the fear that such alliances suggest corporate weakness and lead to an ultimate lack of control. In his remarkably detailed and lucid account of this major development, Robert Porter Lynch dispels the myths and fears surrounding alliances and provides you with time-tested, practical techniques and tips that enable you to create powerful linkages which secure long-term strategic goals. Offering his own counsel plus ideas from many of the world's best strategic thinkers, including Peter Drucker, Kenichi Ohmae and Harvard's Michael Porter, along with dozens of expert managers who contributed their best advice in strategizing, negotiating, and structuring alliances, Business Alliances Guide reveals the unique quality of collaborations - why they operate by a different set of rules, what advantages and drawbacks they bring, what goes into their success, what can cause them to self-destruct - and how you can ultimately benefit from them. Recognizing that alliances are built systematically - not hastily thrown together - the Business Alliances Guide provides an architectural model of an effective collaboration - the Alliance Development Pyramid - which, when followed, will help you avoid costly pitfalls and maximize the chances of successful implementation. Moreover, Business Alliances Guidealerts you to the "six deadly sins" that have destroyed at least 80% of all failed alliances. It tips you off to the seven early warning signs when an alliance is going awry and what you can do to set things right. And it illustrates, by highlighting the unfortunate plight of companies whose alliance efforts failed, the strategies you can employ to avoid the same fate. Enhanced by numerous graphs, models, charts, checklists, and point-by-point summaries, as well as boxed-off tips and warnings that underscore especially important advice, the Business Alliances Guide gives you a new and exciting foothold in today's global economy, helping you fully tap the speed, synergy, agility, and relative safety of strategic collaborations.