Business Alliances

Structuring Strategic Business Alliances

Strategic alliances and other collaborative inter-firm agreements have become commonplace in today's economy. Companies are moving away from large, control-based structures to more flexible and relationship-oriented partnering. With emphasis on the three phases of the Alliance Life Cycle, Dr. Shavers explores the ingrediants to successful partnerships, focusing on the impact the alliance will have on each partner's bottom line.

Strategy by Design

Successful innovations must be desirable to consumers, technically feasible, and viable from a business point of view. But how do you meet these requirements? Tim Brown advocates using the three stages of “design thinking”: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. For inspiration, innovators must look at the world through the eyes and the ears of users, perhaps studying analogous situations or extreme users to spark a generative process. Ideation, the core of the process, involves prototyping and realistic testing. Implementation begins with storytelling to bring the idea into the world. If a narrative can be developed around an idea, it has the best chance of being understood and implemented.