100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • 69With commercial partnerships, fi rms can pool resources and
achieve complex goals that might otherwise have been out of their
individual reach.
The idea
By organizing a corporate partnership it is possible to use your
competitor’s resources—such as transport networks, physical
structures, raw materials, knowledge, and customer reputation—to
realize the full potential of an ambitious idea that would otherwise
rely on your acquiring an unfeasibly large number of new resources.
Such deals can be negotiated either by giving partners a share of
profi ts, or by arranging a mutual relationship where they are allowed
to use your resources in return.
Oneworld Alliance—a partnership between ten major airlines
(British Airways, Cathay Pacifi c, Finnair, Iberia, LAN, Qantas,
Japan Airlines, Malév, Royal Jordanian, and American Airlines)—
utilizes corporate partnerships to offer a service they could not
provide separately. The service is an inclusive, low-cost round-
the-world fare where customers pay a one-off fee to travel to a
wide range of global destinations. Because customers can travel
on any airline within the Oneworld Alliance, the scheme offers
the customer the opportunity to travel to over 600 destinations
in 135 countries. This highly successful service provides a
helpful method of complying with the restrictive rules in the
aviation industry governing ownership of airlines, in a way that
benefi ts customers.