Cooperation Management –
Strategic Alliances

Mature strategic alliances and effective cooperation management build their success on the principles of not only letting your own interests drive your decisions and actions, but also to consider the interests and needs of the alliance partner.

Disregarding this fundamental principle is the key driver for alliances to fail.

 

A seasoned architect and manager of international alliances with global experience over 3+ decades, I can expertly support you to tailor the right cooperative business model for your company, including defining management and decision processes.

 

In 2009, in my role as „Director Alliance Management Kraft Foods Global Coffee“, I was invited to present my perspective and experience on success factors of strategic alliances to the “CoDev”  – Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, a renowned exchange platform for Open Innovation in the United States of America and beyond.

My approach, as presented there, to design negotiation strategies and to develop and implement long-term successful alliances, has since continued to be integral in my work practice:

“…The negotiations, said Perschon, were built around clarity, empathy (standing in the partner's shoes), trust-building and a focus on interests as opposed to positions.

Clarity enabled Kraft and BSH to achieve agreement on what the parties meant, whether they were talking about success or metrics. Empathy created a deep understanding of each side's interests, strategies, expectations and concerns. Trust-building enabled them to test-drive problem-solving capabilities. By focusing on interests, both sides could discover objectives they shared and, where differences existed, how to find common ground. Documenting specific areas of agreements, including definitions and shared language, along with capturing contemporary feedback, was a useful approach throughout the negotiations. Much of the success of the process, said Perschon, lay in the depth and structure of the communication that supported it. In fact, he added, “You can't communicate enough….” *

* The full article you can read here.