If you have ever struggled with a problem in your business that you could not resolve, you can imagine how good it felt to suddenly have this information. As it turned out, our facility and the management of the two competitors worked together to compile information and testing results which gave us huge bargaining power with the supplier. Now just think how long we might have struggled, or battled the supplier on our own, had we not decided to contact those competitors and work together. The restaurant scenario and the manufacturing story are both examples of strategic alliance between similar businesses. There are many, many ways to form strategic alliances.
Advertising jointly is another opportunity.
Everybody advertises where their competitors do. Why not stretch your advertising dollars further by combining efforts in some way. Their ad is going to be in the same publication or on the same radio station anyway. Or joining forces with another business to partner on a project for a large customer can be another way. Perhaps you cannot supply all the goods or services needed to complete a project.