zontal’ relationships. The idea of an alliance is to bring skills or com-
petencies into the business that may not exist or may be in need of
strengthening. The move to outsource all those activities that are not
considered to be ‘core’ to the business has been gathering pace in
recent years, and this has given further impetus to the search for
appropriate alliance partners. Increasingly the value-creating
process is no longer confined to a single firm but instead is rooted in
a confederation of firms each of which contributes specialist skills
and capabilities. The value chain, in effect, now spans several organ-
izations that work as partners in creating and bringing products to
market.
Normann and Ramirez^12 have described this new business model
succinctly:
Increasingly the strategic focus of successful companies is not the
company or even the industry but the value-creating systemitself,
within which different economic actors – suppliers, business partners,
allies, customers – work together to co-produce value. Their key
strategic task is the reconfigurationof roles and relationships among
this constellation of actors in order to mobilize the creation of value
in new forms.Alliances can be formed between a few or many partners. The basis
of an alliance is shared strategy determination – if this does not
happen but instead the dominant party unilaterally determines the
strategic direction, then it is unlikely to succeed as an alliance. More
and more examples are beginning to emerge of alliances that are
formed to exploit particular market opportunities or technologies.
These alliances may be confined to a single product or market sector
or may be more broadly based. An example of the latter is Airbus
Industries, where a number of specialist manufacturers have com-
bined their specific capabilities through a jointly owned company.
An interesting example of the former is the joint venture between
Daimler-Benz and the SMH watch company (the makers of Swatch).
They have come together to create, produce and market the ‘smart’
car through a jointly owned organization – Micro Compact Car
(MCC). What makes this alliance different is that other specialist
organizations have come together to operate specific parts of the car
manufacture and assembly process. Hence, Magna International, a
Canadian company, welds the structural shell; Eisenmann – a
German coatings specialist – paints it before it moves up the assem-
174 Relationship Marketing