Strategy experts show how organisations can unlock value from their alliances and partnerships to achieve superior performance
A new book co-written by INSEAD Professors Henrich Greve and Andrew Shipilov (with Rotman School of Management colleague Tim Rowley) provides the strategic frameworks to help leaders harness the potential of their relationships with customers, suppliers and competitors. The book, entitled “Network Advantage: How to Unlock Value from Your Alliances and Partnerships” (Wiley 2014), is based on more than 40 years of research on networks and collaboration. The text explains how executives can better understand their firms’ alliance portfolios and then map their firms’ position within the overall industry network.
Companies worldwide dedicate considerable resources - time, money and talent - to collaborations. Yet, despite these investments, most executives rarely think about how all of their alliances and partnerships fit together and make up a coherent portfolio. This myopic approach prevents them from achieving competitive advantage from those networks.
“Our intention for writing this book was to help executives understand how they can align their firms’ alliance portfolios with their strategies and industry demands. This knowledge should help companies become more efficient and innovative,” said Professor Andrew Shipilov, the Akzo Nobel Fellow of Strategic Management at INSEAD. Shipilov and his co-authors also say that learning how to use alliance networks will be the next major source of firms’ competitive advantage.
The new book makes the case for why “understanding your firm’s position in the network of alliances is a critical skill for senior executives,” said Henrich Greve, the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Organisation and Management Theory. “You need to manage your firm’s position in the network because it will affect your costs and your ability to innovate, acquire key resources, and serve your customers.”Based on their research, the authors develop a strategic framework they call “Three Degrees of Network Advantage.” This model promises to help executives to systematically design, build and maintain their networks of alliances and partnerships:
First degree: Considers how individual relationships combine a firm’s resources and capabilities with the resources and capabilities of each partner;
- Second degree: Assesses how a firm obtains timely access to information, secures cooperation, and gains power by using the connections among its partners;
- Third degree: Analyses how a firm can collaborate with influential partners in order to enhance the firm’s status.
Network Advantage is garnering praise from both practitioners and scholars.
Stein Ove Fenne, President of Tupperware U.S. & Canada said that “Network Advantage provides fresh perspective on how all firms can benefit from their alliances and partnerships. The authors seamlessly integrate academic research and real-life examples into a practical, step-by-step guide for unleashing the power, information and cooperative advantages available in networks.”
“Network Advantage presents compelling ideas and is a must-read. The book is filled with theoretical and practical insights on the topic and offers captivating case studies to illustrate its key points,” says W. Chan Kim, the author of Blue Ocean Strategy.
“The right business network offers profound advantages for firms operating anywhere in the world”, said Shipilov. “These connections are important for any organisation competing today, and they can be absolutely crucial for a firm’s enduring success”, he added.
The authors developed multiple alliance portfolio assessment tools that can be used as a part of the companies’ strategy development sessions to help executives shape their alliance networks.
For additional information regarding Network Advantage, please visit the book’s website: networkadvantage.org
The ebook is available on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/fr/book/network-advantage/id764982143 and is also available in Kindle version on Amazon. The official launch date of the hard copy version is scheduled for January 2014.
