Competing For Advantage

1. Competing For Advantage Part III – Creating Competitive Advantage Chapter 7 – Cooperative Strategy

2. The Strategic Management Process

3. Cooperative Strategies • Key Terms • Cooperative Strategy – strategy in which firms work together to achieve a shared objective • Strategic Alliance– cooperative strategy in which firms combine resources and capabilities to create a competitive advantage

4. Cooperative Strategies • Key Terms • Co-opetition – condition created when firms that have formed cooperative strategies also compete against one another in the marketplace

5. Reasons for Cooperative Strategies • Most firms lack the full set of resources and capabilities needed to reach their objectives • Cooperative behavior allows partners to create value that they couldn't develop by acting independently • Aligning stakeholder interests (both inside and outside of the organization) can reduce environmental uncertainty • Alliances can provide a new source of revenue

6. Reasons for Cooperative Strategies (cont.) • Alliances can be a vehicle for firm growth • Alliances can enhance the speed of responding to market opportunities, technological changes, and global conditions • Alliances allow firms to gain new knowledge and experiences to increase competitiveness • Reasons for using cooperative strategies vary across market type

7. Reasons for Strategic Alliances by Market Type

8. Slow-Cycle Markets – Becoming Rare • Privatization of industries and economies • Rapid expansion of the Internet's capabilities • Quick dissemination of information • Speed with which advancing technologies permit imitation of even complex products

9. Types of Alliances • Key Terms • Equity Strategic Alliance – alliance in which two or more firms own a portion of the equity in the venture they have created • Joint Venture– strategic alliance in which two or more firms create a legally independent company to share resources and capabilities to develop a competitive advantage • Nonequity Strategic Alliance– alliance in which two or more firms develop a contractual relationship to share some of their unique resources and capabilities to create a competitive advantage

10. Tacit Knowledge • Tacit knowledge – the complex knowledge that is difficult to codify • It is learned through experience • When shared between partnering organizations, it can become a source of competitive advantage

11. Nonequity Strategic Alliances • A separate independent company is not established • The partnering firms do not take equity positions in a separate entity • The relationship is less formal • The relationship demands fewer partner commitments

12. Nonequity Strategic Alliances – Types • Licensing agreements • Distribution agreements • Supply contracts • Outsourcing commitments

13. Strategic Objectives of Cooperative Strategies

14. Cooperative Strategies to Differentiate or Reduce Costs • Complementary strategic alliances • Network cooperative strategies

15. Complementary Strategic Alliances • Key Terms • Complementary Strategic Alliance – business-level alliances in which firms share some of their resources and capabilities in complementary ways to develop competitive advantages

16. Complementary Strategic Alliances • Vertical complementary strategic alliances • Horizontal complementary strategic alliances

17. Complementary Strategic Alliances

18. Complementary Strategic Alliances – Imbalanced Partner Benefits • Partners may learn at different rates • Partners may have different capabilities to leverage complementary resources • Some firms are more effective at managing alliances and deriving benefits from them • Partners may have different reputations in the marketplace, differentiating the types of actions they can legitimately take

19. Network Cooperative Strategies • Key Terms • Network Cooperative Strategy– cooperative strategy in which multiple firms agree to form partnerships to achieve shared objectives (also known as alliance networks) • Strategic Center Firm– the firm at the core of an alliance network and around which the network's cooperative relationships revolve

20. A Strategic Network

21. Network Cooperative Strategies – Effective Use • Knowledge and information gained from multiple sources can produce more and better innovations • Network alliances can be particularly effective for geographically clustered firms • Effective social relationships and interactions among partners while sharing resources and capabilities lead to more successful network alliances • A strategic center firm that manages the complex, cooperative interactions among network partners also contributes to the effectiveness of network alliances • Gaining access to partners' partners can open up advantages to the networking firms • Multiple collaborations increase the likelihood of additional competitive advantages and value creation

22. Strategic Center Firm – Primary Tasks • Strategic outsourcing with non-network members • Support of efforts to develop core competencies • Coordination and sharing of technology-based ideas and efforts • Emphasis on healthy rivalry to generate network-based competitive advantages

23. Two Types of Alliance Networks • Stable Alliance Network • Dynamic Alliance Network

24. Stable Alliance Networks • Formed in mature industries in which demand is relatively constant and predictable • Directed primarily toward developing products at a low cost

25. Dynamic Alliance Networks • Used in industries characterized by environmental uncertainty, frequent product innovations, and short product life cycles • Directed primarily toward continued development of products that are uniquely attractive to customers

26. Cooperative Strategies to Address Forces in the External Environment • Competitive response alliances • Uncertainty-reducing alliances • Competition-reducing cooperative strategies • Associations and consortia

27. Forms of Collusion • Explicit collusion –direct negotiation among firms to establish output levels and pricing agreements that reduce industry competition • Tacit collusion –indirect coordination of production and pricing decisions by several firms, which impacts the degree of competition faced in the industry

28. Cooperative Strategies to Promote Growth and/or Diversification • Diversifying strategic alliances • Franchising • International cooperative strategies

29. Cooperative Strategies to Promote Growth and/or Diversification • Key Terms • Diversifying Strategic Alliances – corporate-level cooperative strategy in which firms share some of their resources and capabilities to diversify into new product or market areas

30. Cooperative Strategies to Promote Growth and/or Diversification • Key Terms • Franchising – cooperative strategy in which a firm uses a franchise as a contractual relationship to describe and control the sharing of its resources and capabilities with partners • Franchise – contractual agreement between two legally independent companies whereby the franchisor grants the right to the franchisee to sell the franchisor's product or do business under its trademarks in a given location for a specified period of time

31. Cooperative Strategies to Promote Growth and/or Diversification • Key Terms • Cross-Border Strategic Alliance – international cooperative strategy in which firms with headquarters in different nations combine some of their resources and capabilities to create a competitive advantage • Distributed Alliance Network – organizational structure used to manage complex and challenging international cooperative strategies

32. A Distributed Strategic Network

33. Attractiveness of Cooperative Strategies to Achieve Growth and/or Diversification • Require fewer resource commitments • Permit greater strategic flexibility • Are not as permanent

34. Franchising • Partners working closely together, finding ways to strengthen the core company's brand name • Franchisors developing programs to transfer knowledge and skills needed for franchisees to successfully compete at the local level • Franchisees providing feedback to franchisors regarding how to become more effective and efficient • Firms using the strategy in fragmented industries where no firm has a dominant share

35. Cross-Border Alliances • Multinational corporations outperform firms that operate only domestically • Due to limited domestic growth opportunities, firms look outside their national borders to expand business • Some foreign government policies require investing firms to partner with a local firm to enter their markets

36. Risks of Cooperative Strategies • Partners may choose to act opportunistically • Partner competencies may be misrepresented • Partner may fail to make available the complementary resources and capabilities that were committed • Partner may make investments specific to the alliance while the other partner may not

37. Managing Competitive Risks in Cooperative Strategies

38. Effective Implementation of Cooperative Strategies • Internalize successful experiences to gain maximum value from the knowledge learned, by organizing the knowledge and properly distributing it to those involved with forming and using cooperative strategies • Establish appropriate controls • Assign managerial responsibility for cooperative strategy to high-level executive or team • Increase the level of trust between partners to increase the likelihood of alliance success, thereby efficiently influencing alliance partners' behaviors

39. Managing Cooperative Strategies • Cost Minimization • Opportunity Maximization

40. Cost Minimization • Relationship with partner is formalized with contracts • Contracts specify how cooperative strategy is to be monitored and how partner behavior is to be controlled • Goal is to minimize costs and prevent opportunistic behaviors by partners • Costs of monitoring cooperative strategy are greater • Formalities tend to stifle partner efforts to gain maximum value from their participation

41. Opportunity Maximization • Focus is on maximizing partnership's value-creation opportunities • Informal relationships and fewer constraints allow partners to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, to learn from each other, and explore additional marketplace possibilities • Partners need a high level of trust that each party will act in the partnership's best interest, which is more difficult in international situations

42. Ethical Questions From an ethical perspective, how much information is a firm obliged to provide to a potential complementary alliance partner about what it expects to learn from a cooperative arrangement?

43. Ethical Questions “A contract is necessary because most firms cannot be trusted to act ethically in a cooperative venture such as a strategic alliance.” In your opinion, is this statement true or false? Why? Does the answer vary by country? Why?

44. Ethical Questions Ventures in foreign countries without strong contract law are more risky because managers may be subjected to bribery attempts once their firms’ assets have been invested in the country. How can managers deal with these problems?

45. Ethical Questions International strategic alliances are being considered by the world’s airline companies. Do these companies face any ethical issues as they participate in multiple alliances? If so, what are the issues? Are the they different for companies headquartered in the U.S. as compared to those with European home bases? If so, what are the differences, and what accounts for them?

46. Ethical Questions Firms with a reputation for ethical behavior in strategic alliances are likely to have more opportunities to form cooperative strategies than those that have not earned this reputation. What actions can firms take to earn a reputation for behaving ethically as a strategic alliance partner?