Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

CHAPTER 15 STRATEGIC ALLIANCES AND NETWORKS
Royce’s revenues by the late 2000s (Pfeifer, 2008). Partnership strategies are not always 
the best, or only, response to complex customer and market situations. Similarly, many 
European producers are moving outsourced production back closer to home because of 
disappointing results in working with overseas partners in emerging markets. One reason 
is that managing across organisational and national boundaries is frequently not straight-
forward (Milne, 2008).
In a growing number of markets, however, it is clear that complex networks of partner-
ships will be the way in which business is done. The transition to working across traditional 
organisational boundaries identifies a new and possibly complex integration challenge. 
Responding effectively to that challenge is a growing part of the marketing strategy and 
implementation problem (see Chapter 16).
Certainly, it is likely that the strategic internal relationships, which will be vital to 
achieving effective integration in networked companies, will be between the organisational 
units and processes that manage key external relationships. As customer demands for more 
complex value offerings grow, the ability to work collaboratively to create solutions will 
emphasise the need for close coordination between suppliers, partners and sellers. The 
management of that coordination will require the effective management of relationships 
between those responsible for strategic marketing and sales, those who manage relation-
ships with suppliers and those who are tasked with the management of alliance and joint-
venture relationships with external organisations. In many companies, these strategic 
internal relationships may be one of the core value-creating processes (see Chapter 14). 
Furthermore, these strategic internal relationships will often have to cope with complex 
markets where there are also links between our suppliers and our partners and between 
them and our customers, in the way suggested by Figure 15.2.
Indeed, in some interesting ways, the trend towards inter-organisational collaboration 
in the route to market provides the other face of relationship marketing. While the priority 
of managing better customer relationship remains, for a growing number of companies this 
is accompanied by the need for efforts to be made in managing the relationship with the 
Figure 15.2 
Strategic internal relationships and value chain collaboration
Supply base
Supplier
relationship
management
Strategic
internal
relationships
Customers
Strategic
marketing
management
Alliance/joint
venture
management