Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Figure 15.3 
Drivers of 
collaboration 
strategy
Collaboration
strategy
choices
Market
complexity
and risk
Skills and
resource
gaps
Supply
chain
management
Enhancing
learning
capabilities

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THE DRIVERS OF COLLABORATION STRATEGIES
15.3.1 Market complexity and risk
Modern markets are frequently characterised by complexity and high degrees of risk. One 
way of coping with that complexity and reducing (or sharing) risk is through collaboration. 
Complexity and risk may be exhibited in various situations:
● 
Blurring of market boundaries: Conventional market definitions may become outdated 
and expose a company to new types of customer demand and new types of competition. 
The information industry is a prime example, where we see the convergence of Internet 
companies, telecommunications, consumer electronics, entertainment media, publishing 
and office equipment industries. A converging industry greatly increases the complexity 
for a single firm trying to compete in the face of a widening range of customer require-
ments and technologies to satisfy customer needs. Many of the products required are 
likely to be beyond the design, manufacturing and marketing capabilities of a single 
company, thus driving companies to pool their skills. This pooling of capabilities may be 
very effective. Technological convergence in making the mobile telephone both a cam-
era and a music player has had severe disruptive effects for the traditional photography 
and music businesses. High-technology businesses of this kind have seen many alliances 
formed, though often lasting only a short period of time as competitive priorities change.
● 
Escalating customer demands: In many markets, buyers are demanding increasing value 
but also uniqueness in their purchases: one-to-one marketing, or micro-segmentation, 
is becoming a reality. To respond positively to this demand may be beyond the scope 
of a single company in terms of expertise and economy, and may require new ways of 
doing business. For example, the taxi firm Uber, and other firms growing in the ‘shar-
ing economy’, have revolutionised their sectors. Uber’s car-sharing model provides an 
online, pre-paid, online-tracked taxi ride, but by using freelance drivers with their own 
cars, Uber avoids owning vehicles or taxi depots and yet provides a greatly superior 
model – at least to the consumer and the company itself (see Figure 15.4). Its ‘product’ is