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TELL ME NOWYour partner in the provision of
Research Strategic Business Information
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• Friends or Foe Strategic alliances in the
  noughties

Paper presented at Rivers of knowledge 9th
Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference 26
- 29 August 2001
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TELL ME NOW

• Friends or Foe Strategic alliances in the
  noughties

• What is a strategic alliance
• Business view of strategic alliances
• Types of alliances
• Historical alliances in Library and Information
  Science
• Success factors
• Reasons for failure
• Expand service offerings through alliances -
  external
• Expand service offerings through alliances -
  internal
• Conclusion

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Friends or foe

• What is a strategic alliance
• A common strategy is developed in unison and a
  win win attitude is adopted by all parties
• the relationship is reciprocal with each partner
  prepared to share specific strengths with
  each other
• a pooling of resources for mutual gain (John
  Harbison - Booz Allen Hamilton)
• a long term relationship where participants
  co-operate and willingly modify their business
  practices to improve joint performance (Whipple
  Frankel Journal of Supply Chain Management)

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Friends or foe

• Business view of strategic alliances
• Alliances are preferred by companies entering new
  businesses, new geographies or accessing new
  distribution channels
• Simple and flexible contractual alliances and
  consortia are better received than complicated
  equity ventures
• Alliances have gained popularity in the last 10
  years due to the Internet and the associated
  e-business issues.
• McKinsey study showed that 50 of alliances are
  successful, measured by stock price movements
  following the announcement.
• (Ernst Halevy - McKinsey Quarterly 2000)

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Friends or foe

• Types of alliances
• Customer and supplier
• Competitor
• Geographic
• Sales alliances
• Employees

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Friends or foe

• Historical alliances in Library and Information
  Science
• Shared cataloguing - ABN
• Shared purchasing - Technilib
• ILL - Ilanet
• Joint catalogues and resources sharing CAVAL.

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Friends or foe

• Success factors
• Open communication.
• Trust
• Commitment by senior management
• Ability to meet performance objectives
• Clear goals
• Partner compatibility
• Adequate resourcing

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Friends or foe

• Reasons for failure
• Unclear goals and objectives
• Picking the wrong partner
• Not enough commitment by senior management.
• Inadequate resourcing
• Closed communication channels.
• Changing company circumstances.

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Friends or foe

• Expand service offerings through alliances -
  External
• IT vendors - innovative systems to deliver
  information
• Consolidation services - journals books
• Business information services - extra subject
  specialisation
• Online vendors - intranet solutions

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Friends or foe

• Expand service offerings through alliances -
  Internal
• IT department - Knowledge Management Systems
  Intranets
• HR Training - Intranets
• Records Management - One stop shop for documents
• Accounts - Co-ordination of Information Supplies

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Friends or foe - Conclusion

• Alliances - Friends not foe?
• Enhance capabilities
• Increase service offerings
• Gain exposure to non- clients
• Encourage teamwork
• Become the Organisations one stop Information
  shop