Smart Alliances: A Practical Guide to Repeatable Success (A Strategy & Business Book) [Paperback]

John R. Harbison (Author), Jr. Peter Pekar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 9, 1998

8 steps to successful strategic alliances--from the experts at Booz Allen & Hamilton

Turn to any business section in any newspaper today and you?ll find no shortage of stories about high-profile international strategic alliances. Many are success stories. The majority, however, are not. Now, you can learn what separates the successes -- like those of Corning, Mazda, and Oracle -- from the failures. In Smart Alliances, the two senior consultants who made Booz-Allen & Hamilton the foremost authority on alliance strategy present eight practical steps any company can take to adopt the best practices of today?s alliance leaders and turn them to their own competitive advantage.

A Strategy & Business Book

For more information on the fast growing and challenging world of Strategic Alliances, click here to visit the smartalliances.com website.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An extraordinarily practical guide to making alliances work. Highly recommended to anyone at the sharp end of a strategic alliance." -Gary Hamel, associate professor, London Business School, and coauthor, Competing for the Future

"Harbison and Pekar bring substance and depth to a topic that has all too often been discussed in mere platitudes. Their advice on how to manage cross-border alliances in a rapidly changing global economy is essential reading." -John A. Quelch, Sebastian S. Kreske Professor of Marketing, Harvard University

"As the president of an association that endeavors to provide our membership with practical guidelines for alliances, I found this book to be one of the best guides on the subject-clearly pointing out the successful as well as the unsuccessful routes to higher return on equity through alliances." -Charles H. Conner, president, Association for Corporate Growth

"John Harbison and Peter Pekar have assembled a decade of their writings and consulting experience on alliances into a fascinating manual. Direct and comprehensive, their book represents an unusual combination of thoughtful analysis and pragmatic advice." -Bruce Kogut, Dr. Felix Zandman Professor of International Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

From the Inside Flap

In the old days-the 1980s-a company that lacked a competitive capability could either develop it internally or gain it via acquisition. Today, the speed of business has accelerated to such a rate that companies no longer have the time to secure such crucial capabilities using either of those methods. The solution? Alliances. And yet, surveys of CEOs show that the lack of know-how for forming lasting alliances is one of the biggest gaps in business knowledge. Even in companies with successful experiences, the learning often fails to filter down past the senior level.In 1988, Booz**Allen & Hamilton, one of the top management consulting firms in the world, became aware of the problem. Since then, the firm has become renowned for gathering the best thinking on alliance building from companies in every major industry around the globe. Now, in Smart Alliances, two of Booz**Allen's senior consultants distill that knowledge into an eight-step plan for building and sustaining strategic alliances at every level of the company.From identifying opportunities to mapping objectives to planning and implementing compatible partnerships, they share the secrets of how alliances can be used to take a company global-through the success stories of corporate legAnds like Corning, Ford, and Hewlett-Packard in regions as diverse as Europe, Japan, and India.But authors Harbison and Pekar go far beyond the anecdotal. Using firsthand experience, in-depth interviews, and a wealth of collective research on more than 6,000 international alliances, they put hard numbers to this increasingly vital strategic skill. Their best practices can help companies jump the learning curve and form the kind of sustained partnerships that make for repeatable success.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (October 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787943266
• ISBN-13: 978-0787943264
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,790,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars High level introductory text, January 28, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Smart Alliances: A Practical Guide to Repeatable Success (A Strategy & Business Book) (Paperback)

This book is targeted to large traditional corporations - not the "new economy" companies that are doing a lot of the alliances these days.

It also lacks depth, providing only an outline of the Booze Hamilton approach to alliances. The book is a sales tool in that if you want to learn all the details of their process, you must buy an engagement in addition to the book.

So, if you are with a large corporation, skip the book and call a consultant. If you are in the new economy skip the book.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Intro Text, July 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Smart Alliances: A Practical Guide to Repeatable Success (A Strategy & Business Book) (Paperback)

I gave this book 2 stars rather than 1, as it is a decent introductory text (with its share of fluff) with a couple of good charts (though a preponderance of "filler" charts). However, the book is a thinly disguised publicity push of Booz Allen (and a few others). And the book is impractical since it is virtually devoid of tools--rather useless for the professional. Caveat emptor.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lite-weight with no real substance, April 30, 1999

By 

Mojo Master "Rock guitarist wanabe" (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Smart Alliances: A Practical Guide to Repeatable Success (A Strategy & Business Book) (Paperback)

Covers the subject at a very high level with lots of consultant charts, tables and matrices. Great stuff if you need to fill a presentation with a lot of fluff. Deffinitely a teaser for a Booz&Allen consulting gig. You get a glimps of their template tools and lots of reference to how effective they are. Some interesting reading regarding major corporate alliance success stories, but never much drill-down. This book is targeted for the completely clueless exec, the dilentante on a long flight, any consultant-type who wants to look like they know something, or the B-school prof who adds this title to his supplemental reading list. Not recommended if you are the one who needs to make an alliance happen at your company. Let me know if there exist a more hands-on guide to making alliances happen.