Managers must know how to build them in order to reap the benefits. Providing competitively superior value for customers in today's complex business markets increasingly relies on networks of suppliers pooling complementary skills and resources. In an expanding global economy, it's tougher for a company to remain truly independent and still beat the competition. However, managers generally still try to operate their companies as selfsufficient organizations. Although they might build strong social ties with counterparts at other firms, they typically treat suppliers as adversaries, transaction by transaction.
Progressive companies participate in formal buyerseller partnerships.
Even then, when managers need to tap another firm's core capabilities to improve the value they provide to customers, their typical response is vertical integration. Reluctant to cede full control of operations, they buy rather than ally to acquire the other company's skills. Model for the future. As traditional distinctions between companies, competitors, and their markets blur, more intimate forms of corporate alliances will form, representing the next stage in business partnering. Such systems reinforce individual companies' core business strengths to produce more customer value than individual firms can operating autonomously.