IN THE run-up to the British election this month, it was taken for granted that politics was entering an age of alliances. No party would win a majority; that much seemed certain. The question was whether the Conservatives or Labour could put together a winning coalition. David Cameron’s surprise victory on May 7th put paid to this talk. But in many industries it is still May 6th: companies are casting around for alliances that can complement their strengths, make up for their defects, hedge their bets, add to their store of knowledge or extend their reach.
There is nothing new about businesses forming either joint ventures (in which they establish jointly owned subsidiaries) or looser alliances. There are ample studies to show how often they have been tried—and how often they have ended in tears. However, despite the difficulties of making partnerships work, firms are under a number of pressures to keep trying.
The first is that, in some industries, the cost of new technologies is so crippling that even the largest companies cannot bear it alone. Carmakers, for example, are having to spend fortunes developing electric, hybrid,...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1R6GZWh
No comments:
Post a Comment