Strategies of cooperation between firms

This article is set in the general context of the relationship between strategic management and organizational control.

Strategy is a major area of management. Unlike operational decisions, which concern execution and can be delegated, strategic decisions are the responsibility of General Management, under the control of the Board of Directors. They concern the major medium- and long-term orientations that will determine the company's future. A distinction is made between :

• corporate strategy, which concerns the scope of the business (choices concerning diversification or vertical integration, for example);

• business strategy, which concerns the choice of competitive policy for each business segment ("low-cost" strategies or differentiation through quality, for example);

• functional" strategies (coherence of policies carried out in the major functions, between industrial policy and trade policy, for example);

• relational" strategies, concerning relations with other companies: you can do things alone or with allies.

It is in this context that the issue of alliances, the subject of this article, arises. In an alliance, the members remain legally and financially independent (unlike the various subsidiaries in a group, which are financially controlled by the parent company), but freely decide to coordinate their actions, to cooperate, to better face competitive challenges.

Alliances are studied mainly from the point of view of the governance and management control problems posed to allies. Since strategic problems are non-repetitive and non-formalized, we cannot provide management methods or tools as in many functional disciplines (such as, for example, the "ABC method" in cost accounting, or the "Wilson model" in inventory management). It's the theoretical understanding of the challenges posed by alliances that enables managers to make the right analyses and choices.

Alliances have proliferated in recent decades, providing an alternative to capital concentration. One of the major trends in the economy is to move towards "reticular" structures (networks of companies that remain independent but integrated at strategic and organizational levels). Some examples are emblematic, such as the "Airbus phenomenon", or the development of franchise networks in the retail sector.

Allies are in a paradoxical situation: they remain independent, but act within an integrated framework. They cannot take "orders" or be subject to hierarchical control, like a department in a conventional company, or a subsidiary in a group. Nevertheless, network unity is essential...