"To be successful in business it’s not what you know,
but who you know and how you play the game"
- Thompson Financial estimated that there were 5 200 new strategic alliances formed (in the USA) in 1996. By 2000, this number had nearly doubled to just over 10 00 per year, rising steadily over the period.
- A recent study of over 450 managers found that those who were promoted fastest spent 48% of there time networking, those promoted at average speed spent only 19% of there time networking. (Cole, K. Supervision: Management in Action. Prentice Hall, Australia, 1998)
- Ernst & Young have estimated that businesses in strategic alliances get more than 20% of there revenue from alliance relationships (France, G. & Sorensen, S. ‘Managing Strategic Alliances to Capture Value’, Ernst & Young, viewed 11/9/05, http://www.ey.com), and Fortune 500 members that actively participate in alliances have a return on equity 40% higher than the Fortune 500 average.
- Chris Anderson, CEO of Cable & Wireless Optus has cited the company’s strategic alliance as largely responsible for its success in the market. Partnering gave Optus the ability to move from the provision of basic telephony services in the early 1990’s to being one of the country’s top ten publicly listed companies in 2000, operating in the mobile, data and business and multimedia markets.
- Advantages of strategic alliances/networking:
1. Ability to increase output without expanding the workforce - economies of scale and scope can be achieved, and in some cases, the combined strength allows the alliance to target opportunities that would be too large fo ...