...CHAPTER ONE 1. Introduction to the study The purpose of study is to evaluate the effects of strategic buyer-supplier alliances and partnerships in the South African clothing stores, sector and industry. Strategic Alliances, Partnerships and Joint Ventures involve the establishment of informal and formal relationships with other individuals or businesses to share resources, ideas or capital (Hugo, Badenhorst-Weiss & Biljon 2007). The research indicates that during the past decade, companies in all types of industries and all parts of the world have elected to form strategic alliances and partnerships to complement their own strategic initiatives and strengthen their competitiveness in domestic and international markets (Thompson Jr, Gamble & Strickland, 2006), the statement confirms that some of the companies realize the importance of strategic alliances and partnerships. The current situation in South Africa indicates that the government is imposing Quotas on Chinese imports with intent to influence the South Africa retailers to buy from local suppliers (Sandrey & Fundra, 2008). The quotas have encouraged the major retailers in South Africa to procure more from local suppliers than ever before given the growth in their collective businesses over the last four years. Preliminary investigation between the retailers and clothing manufacturers confirm the retailers’ expectations that local companies will be unable to make up the expected shortfall the quotas will inflict...
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...An overview of strategic alliances Dean Elmuti Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, USA Yunus Kathawala Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, USA Keywords Strategic alliances, Competitive advantage, Success Introduction Nike, the largest producer of athletic footwear in the world, does not manufacture a single shoe. Gallo, the largest wine company on earth, does not grow a single grape. Boeing, the pre-eminent aircraft manufacturer, makes little more than cockpits and wing bits (Quinn, 1995, p. 1). Abstract Strategic alliances can be effective ways to diffuse new technologies rapidly, to enter a new market, to bypass governmental restrictions expeditiously, and to learn quickly from the leading firms in a given field. However, strategic alliances are not simple or easy to create, develop, and support. Strategic alliances projects often fail because of tactical errors made by management. By using a well managed strategic alliances agreement, companies can gain in markets that would otherwise be uneconomical. Considerable time and energy must be put forth by all involved in order to create a successful alliance. It is essential that corporations enter into strategic alliances arrangements with a comprehensive plan outlining detailed expectations, requirements, and expected benefits. ``How can this be?'' you ask. These companies, like...
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...An overview of strategic alliances Dean Elmuti Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, USA Yunus Kathawala Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, USA Keywords Strategic alliances, Competitive advantage, Success Introduction Nike, the largest producer of athletic footwear in the world, does not manufacture a single shoe. Gallo, the largest wine company on earth, does not grow a single grape. Boeing, the pre-eminent aircraft manufacturer, makes little more than cockpits and wing bits (Quinn, 1995, p. 1). Abstract Strategic alliances can be effective ways to diffuse new technologies rapidly, to enter a new market, to bypass governmental restrictions expeditiously, and to learn quickly from the leading firms in a given field. However, strategic alliances are not simple or easy to create, develop, and support. Strategic alliances projects often fail because of tactical errors made by management. By using a well managed strategic alliances agreement, companies can gain in markets that would otherwise be uneconomical. Considerable time and energy must be put forth by all involved in order to create a successful alliance. It is essential that corporations enter into strategic alliances arrangements with a comprehensive plan outlining detailed expectations, requirements, and expected benefits. ``How can this be?'' you ask. These companies, like...
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...MRF TYRE COMPANY PREPARED BY: STUDENT ID: MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION CARDIFF METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY DATE OF SUBMISSION: Table of contents 1.0 INTRODUCTION 3 1.1 Company profile 3 2.0 MISSION OF MRF TYRES COMPANY 8 2.1 Mission of MRF 8 2.2 Vision of MRF Tyre Company 8 2.3 Internal and external stakeholders 8 2.4 Benefits of the internal and external stakeholders. 9 2.4.1 Competitors 9 2.4.2 Customers 9 2.4.3 Government and local communities 9 2.4.4 Suppliers 10 2.4.5 Managers/director 10 2.4.6 Employees 10 2.4.7 Share holders 11 3.0 SOURCE OF FAILURES IN FORMING THE STRATEGIC ALLIANCE 11 3.1 Mitigations to solve the problems 13 4.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY 15 1.0 INTRODUCTION MRF limited is an Indian tyre manufacturing company. The company is producing tyres and other related products and sells and distribute to the different types of vehicles. The company provides tyre choosing and maintenance service to the customers. The products of MFR are tyres, funskool, paints, coats, pretreads. The company produces the tyres for all vehicles in all sectors; the company produce tyres for heavy duty trucks, buses, light commercial vehicles, passenger cars, off road vehicle tyres, two wheelers, motor sports tyres and so on. (MRF, n.d.) Along with the production the company offers number of services too, like computerized wheel alignments, wheel balancing, tyre changing, nitrogen filling, robotic car wash, optical headlamp align...
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...their own boundaries. The concept of strategic alliances has become widely used in the business language to refer to the types of partnerships agreements between two or more companies that pursue a clear strategic collaboration objective, with different levels of possible integration among the members. In today’s competitive global economy strategic alliances are a crucial option for achievement of competitive advantage. By developing strategic alliances, organisations can share their excess or complementary resources and capabilities so as to strengthen their position in the market and gain competitive advantage. When such alliances are effectively and efficiently managed the partnering firms can gain immensely towards mutual profitability. In any cooperative relationship trust is key for success. Where mutual trust and synergies exists, partnering organisations can benefit substantially from opportunities that can be exploited through maximum utilization of combined resources. On the other hand, where there is no trust, extensive monitoring systems become necessary to monitor each partners’ contribution and this results in increased cost of operations that ultimately hamper the competitiveness of the alliance. Definition A strategic alliance is a relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need while remaining independent. Partners may provide the strategic alliance with resources such as...
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...Strategic Alliance Abstract Organizations are facing exciting and dynamic challenges in the 21st century. In the globalized business, companies require strategic thinking and only by evolving good corporate strategies can they become strategically competitive. A sustained or sustainable competitive advantage occurs when firm implements a value – creating strategy of which other companies are unable to duplicate the benefits or find it too costly to initiate. Corporate strategy includes the commitments, decisions and actions required for a firm to achieve strategic competitiveness and earn above average returns. The goals of corporate strategy are challenging not only for large firms like Microsoft but also for small local computer retail outlets or even dry cleaners. I hope to offer a concise description of strategic alliances as well as a picture of who is participating in them and why. The states of affairs that encouraged this “rising era of collaboration” will be reviewed and the necessary steps in formulating alliances. Examples of companies that are or were involved in strategic alliances will be discussed, others of which were thriving and the others of which they were not. This paper is not intended to serve as a comprehensive study of strategic alliances. Introduction Corporate alliances, which are now called “strategic”, are in fact not new. Westinghouse Electric and Mitsubishi were allied for seventy years. The alliance between Ford and Mazda dates...
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...through an integrated network that includes its five business segments, alliances, and partnerships. Lufthansa uses this strategy to continue with their strategic goals regarding its core business activity passenger transportation’s vision to be a top leader at home and across-borders. These networks allow Lufthansa to manage its connections with its customers, suppliers, partners, and alliances at home and globally more efficiently. In addition, it helps to implement value-based and cost saving strategies options in regards to the products and services offered to different markets. Lufthansa’s aim in 2009 was to maintain and expand their position as the leading European quality carrier. In order to succeed the firm has focused on long term growth prospects of securing and building their market position at home then following international expansion. The firm’s position has allowed Lufthansa’s group to choose an international strategy that allows them to act with farsightedness in how to differentiate and customize their services and products to local and global markets by coordinating with their network and ensuring that all members are producing equally high performance within their market place. Although this strategy requires global coordination and flexibility, in regards to the networks, all segments are decentralized and operated in an autonomous form with the commitment to support Lufthansa’s strategic development goals. 2. Explain what means the...
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...357-381 www.lrpjournal.com Success Factors of Strategic Alliances in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises—An Empirical Survey Werner H. Hoffmann and Roman Schlosser Strategic alliances are increasingly gaining favour over go-it-alone strategies for organisations to achieve fast and economical growth. This study aims to identify critical success factors in alliance-making with special consideration given to the specific situation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A comprehensive questionnaire was used to interview a random sample of key executives in 164 Austrian SMEs. This paper reports on the results of that empirical survey, and seeks to identify the weights of various success factors in alliance-making in SMEs. The results show that “soft” facts such as trust are important for alliance success, but not on their own sufficient. Also “hard” facts such as strategic compatibility and appropriate governance mechanisms have an important influence on alliance success. Careful strategic planning and good partnership preparation are essential for alliance success, but the full value of an alliance has to be developed as it evolves. k 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights c reserved. Introduction Interfirm collaborations, such as strategic alliances and joint ventures,1 have become important business management instruments to improve the competitiveness of companies, especially in complex and turbulent environments.2 Alliances help to bridge the gap between the firm’s present...
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...Learning in Strategic Alliances Strategic alliances that bring organizations together promise unique opportunities for partners. The reality is often otherwise. Successful strategic alliances manage the partnership, not just the agreement, for collaborative advantage. Above all, they also pay attention to learning priorities in alliance evolution. The resource-based view of the firm that gained currency in the mid-1980s considered that the competitive advantage of an organization rests on the application of the strategic resources1 at its disposal. These days, orthodoxy recognizes the merits of the dynamic, knowledge-based capabilities2 underpinning the positions organizations occupy in a sector or market. Strategic alliances—meaning cooperative agreements between two or more organizations—are a means to enhance strategic resources: self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly difficult in a complex, uncertain, and discontinuous external environment that calls for focus and flexibility in equal measure. Everywhere, organizations are discovering that they cannot “go” it alone and must now often turn to others to survive.3 Preamble 1 2 3 The resources that the theory deemed of strategic importance were valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable (leading to charges of tautology). Importantly, the list of what constitutes a resource was expanded in the 1990s with the refinement that the encompassing construct previously called resources should be segregated into...
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...Popularity Comparison of Various E-Commerce Websites in India Company Name | Alexa Popularity Rank in India | Flipkart.com | 5 | Amazon.in | 7 | Snapdeal.com | 13 | Quikr.com | 22 | Amazon.com | 15 | Jabong.com | 20 | Ebay.in | 27 | Paytm.com | 23 | Olx.in | 32 | Alibaba.com | 55 | Shopclues.com | 44 | Myntra.com | 299 | Levels of Channels The major functions of channels for amazon includes: 1. Order Processing 2. Warehousing 3. Inventory Management 4. Transportation Amazon is known for its strategically located distribution facilities. Amazon Seller Services India Pvt Ltd have five Fulfillment Centres (FCs) in Delhi, Chennai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Tauru (outskirts of Gurgaon). All these FCs have been strategically placed to cater to high density areas (Metros) and also they are generally placed on the outskirts of the city, thereby reducing on the rental costs. Distribution channels for amazon: Online channel: It has a significant cost benefit over other traditional distribution channels. The online channel for amazon includes: * E-Books-Kindle reader: Downloadable books for online reading. * AmazonMP3 & Cloud Player * Instant Video: Allows for Buffering and downloading of music from the records of EMI, Warnerbros, Sony & Universal * Mac Dowload store: Provides software and apps for apple products * AppStore for Android * Amazon Cloud drive: Provides cloud services for small...
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...Conservation International alliance work. - Framework o Value gained from Partnering: Trading relationship with Starbucks overall ▪ What does CI give? (coffee production and expertise) ▪ What does Starbucks give? (demand for coffee beans) ▪ What is the purpose of the alliance? ( Joint goal: Leadership initiative for all other coffee guys? o Key Drivers of Partnership Success ▪ Environment? (How well have SBUX & CI planned for potential changes in competitive, political, social, economic, and technological environment?) • Controllable/uncontrollable factors? • Predictable/unpredictable factors? • Scenario planning? • Exit strategy/plan? ( signing short term contracts, not long time commitments ▪ Strategy? (Is there a strategic fit and a flexibility partnering arrangement in case of strategic change?) • Partner’s motivation? ( similar mission statements, mutual goals o Not competitive, cooperative to maximize joint gains through trading o (Changing motivation? Emergence of Fair Trade as an alternative) • Comparable levels of commitment? ( Amount of money invested? ▪ Structure? ( Are incentives aligned and is the organizational structure appropriate?) • Very well-defined partnerships ▪ Behavior? ( Is there a cultural fit? How are processes managed and how is effectiveness tracked? ( performance & viability) • Do you see any hazards for the alliance now and/or in the long run?...
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...(bjarne@rugelsjoen.no) is a director at GoalFocus, a performance-coaching consultancy based in London. Managing Alliances with the Balanced Scorecard Fifty percent of corporate alliances fail. But you can increase your partnership’s odds of success by applying these techniques. by Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton, and Bjarne Rugelsjoen 114 Harvard Business Review January–February 2010 HBR.ORG C ILLUSTRATION: BRETT RYDER orporate alliances are a 50/50 bet—at least according to a recent study by McKinsey & Company, which found that only half of all joint ventures yield returns to each partner above the cost of capital. That’s worrying, given that partnerships and alliances are central to many companies’ business models. Originally used to outsource noncore parts of supply chains, alliances today are expected to generate a competitive advantage. So it is necessary to dramatically improve their odds of success. Why do alliances fail so often? The prime culprit is the way they are traditionally organized and managed. Most alliances are defined by service level agreements (SLAs) that identify what each side commits to delivering rather than what each hopes to gain from the partnership. The SLAs emphasize operational performance metrics rather than strategic objectives, and all too often those metrics become outdated as the business environment changes. Alliance managers don’t know whether to stick to the original conditions or renegotiate. By that time, the companies’ leaders...
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...Man 4633 ASSIGNMENT 3 1.Define arbitrage factor costs Arbitrage factor costs are costs that an MNE incurs when there is the inability for a firm to encourage for issues to be resolved without the need of arbitration. When arbitration is needed, a firm loses precious time and possibly funds to be able to settle a dispute among the different business units with a conflict. This may result in the loss of competitive advantage and/or the loss of actual funds. 2. “Today’s challenge is to build transnational organizations that can sense an emerging consumer trend in one country, link it to a new technology or capability it has in another, develop a creative new product or service in a third, then diffuse that innovation rapidly around the world”. With this in mind, identify a company who has demonstrated this ability including a brief description of each step they took. Boeing is a perfect example of a company that was able to link technology and capabilities from national suppliers which they call “partners”, and to decentralize their manufacturing functionality to develop the new 747 dreamliner. Boeing first began by identifying key geographical “partners” that had the resources and functional capability to manufacture specific sections of the airplane. After doing so, they decentralized their manufacturing capability and handed the responsibility to these “partners”. Finally, what Boeing was left with was a strategically dispersed manufacturing plant across the globe...
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...Vol. 5, No. 1 International Journal of Business and Management International Market Expansion Strategies for High-Tech Firms: Partnership Selection Criteria for Forming Strategic Alliances Øystein Moen (Corresponding author) Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management N-7491 Trondheim, Norway Tel: 47-7359-3505 E-mail: Oeystein.Moen@iot.ntnu.no Ottar Bakås SINTEF Technlogy and Society, Department of Industrial Management N-7465 Trondheim, Norway E-mail: ottar.bakas@sintef.no Anette Bolstad Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management N-7491 Trondheim, Norway Vidar Pedersen Investment Office Nordic, Telenor Nordic Finance Snarøyveien 30, N-1331 Fornebu Tel: 47-9823-2599 E-mail: vidar.pedersen@telenor.com Abstract Newly established, technology-based firms entering international markets often have limited resources in terms of capabilities, time, and capital. As a consequence, these firms often use entry modes characterised by low resource commitment, including partnership agreements (strategic alliances). This paper, investigates which partner selection criteria that are important for this group of firms when they are selecting partners. Based on case studies of three Norwegian firms targeting the UK market, five selection criteria have been identified as important (trust, relatedness of business, access...
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...Services (GBS) organization has met this challenge successfully; they have implemented best-in-class processes to provide business capabilities that create value for the business units, while reducing the costs and efforts necessary to support these operations. GBS is one of four organization pillars that support the organization’s business and provides more than 170 services to the company. The services delivered through GBS include everything from employee services (e.g. people management, facilities, communication, meeting services, and travel services) to business services (e.g. financial services and solutions, product innovation, supply network solutions). Many of those services are provided today through a set of alliance partnerships. The scope of the alliance management effort at GBS encompasses the entire outsourcing lifecycle of these outsourcing engagements; the goal is to create value for the business by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of these partner relationships, while reducing the risk associated with the use of third party organizations to deliver services. Managing the end-to-end relationship successfully creates a win-win situation for the organization and its...
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