The CVS-Aetna Merger Hinges on One Question: What Do Consumers Get Out of It?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | November 7, 2017 The proposed merger of CVS and Aetna will test what it…
Management Articles
Featured Articles
Acquiring Value: Strategies for M&A — HBR Webinar
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Webinar presented by HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Alliances, partnerships, acquisitions, mergers, and joint ventures are no longer exceptions…
Strategic Partnerships — LinkedIn Learning Course
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Online course on Lynda.com | This fast-paced course builds on the ideas and tools in Remix Strategy and…
Who Killed The GE Model?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | This blog has gotten a lot of attention. The Wall Street Journal…
What the Big Mergers of 2017 Tell Us About 2018
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The great business remix of the last three years shows no sign of…
Alliance Strategy
In 2018, Did Business Get Too Big?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | In THE NEW YORK TIMES | December 21, 2018 The number of mega mergers announced this year raises…
Why Your Next Deal May Be a Partnership
By Bob Saada and Ben Gomes-Casseres | In STRATEGY+BUSINESS | December 3, 2018 More than a quarter-century of global data on alliances…
Strategic Partnerships — LinkedIn Learning Course
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Online course on Lynda.com | This fast-paced course builds on the ideas and tools in Remix Strategy and…
The Amazon-Morgan-Berkshire Partnership Balloon
By Ben Gomes-Casseres This blog was cited in The New York Times’s DealBook (January 30, 2018): The effort focuses on…
The Strategy Behind the Deal — Questions About Dell-EMC
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The news that Dell will acquire EMC is déjà vu all over…
The Three Laws of Business Combinations — Excerpt of Remix Strategy
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | When you look to external partners for acquiring resources and capabilities,…
Creating Joint Value
(Strategic Alliance Magazine) In Biopharma and many other industries, “Not Invented Here” is SO Last Century. Joint value is the…
From Rivals to Partners — IBM and Apple
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The lynchpin of the new IBM-Apple alliance will be this simple…
Merger Are Partnerships Too — Trending Now
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Corporate marriage brokers are again fully employed. Every day a new deal…
The Business Remix — Trending Now
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Investment bankers are giddy at the prospect of increased M&A…
Alliance Strategy: Managing Beyond the Alliance
(CriticalEYE) Experience and research shows that companies that have a “strategic alliance” without a coherent “alliance strategy”are almost sure to…
Strategy Must Lie at the Heart of Alliances
(Financial Times) Alliances formed at high levels, often blessed with the designation “strategic”, have often failed to deliver. The problem:…
Alliance and Risk: Securing a Place in the Victory Parade
(Financial Times) Alliances can help companies hedge between competing technology standards and reduce the costs of major strategic change by…
Designing Alliances
Strategic Partnerships — LinkedIn Learning Course
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Online course on Lynda.com | This fast-paced course builds on the ideas and tools in Remix Strategy and…
Why Your Partnership Contract Is Too Important to Be Left to the Lawyers
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Behind every partnership lurks an “incomplete contract” — a concept for which…
Exit and Loyalty — Yahoo and Tumbler
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | As Yahoo goes through with its acquisition of Tumblr, CEO Marissa Mayer…
The False Security of Contracts — HP vs Oracle
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Hewlett Packard and Oracle are embroiled in a marriage spat that would…
A Partnership Is Not a Purchase Order
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Scott McNealy, ex-CEO of Sun Microsystems, tweeted this message last month: “Most…
Outsourcing: Where Will You Draw the Line?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The Defense Department is due to report to Congress that in Afghanistan,…
Outsource, Don’t Abdicate
(CIO Magazine) The term “outsourcing” is an unfortunate one. With every outsourced task comes a new responsibility to govern that…
Relationship Lessons from the Ford-Firestone Breakup
(Bridge Forum Op-Ed) Firestone’s breakup with Ford is the most public corporate divorce in recent memory. But it is far…
Managing Alliances
Strategic Partnerships — LinkedIn Learning Course
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Online course on Lynda.com | This fast-paced course builds on the ideas and tools in Remix Strategy and…
Personal Chemistry in Partnerships — Handle With Care
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | When I hear that two CEOs are striking a deal in…
Vendor or Partner?
(Outsourcing Venture Magazine) Is your outsourcing venture a vendor relationship or a true partnership? It is critical to know the…
BOOK: Mastering Alliance Strategy — A Comprehensive Guide to Design, Management and Organization
With James Bamford and Michael Robinson San Francisco: Wiley/Jossey-Bass (2003) Presents state-of-the-art thinking and practices for using partnerships effectively. An…
Fuji Xerox: Competing in Constellations
(Strategy + Business) Describes 40-year relationship between Xerox and Fuji Photo Film. This is successful US-Japanese joint venture holds important…
Multi-Partner Groups
How to Manage Multiple Partnerships
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | If you think politicians have a tough time staying monogamous, take a…
Competing for Partners — Japan Airlines, Delta, and AA
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Japan Airlines has chosen to stay hitched to American Airlines and…
Competing in Alliance Constellations: A Primer for Managers
(Carnegie Bosch Institute) When two or more firms link up in an alliance, they begin to reshape competition from a…
Star Alliance, 2000
(Brandeis University case) Origin, management, and challenges facing Star Alliance, the airline constellation led by United and Lufthansa. Teaching case…
Constellation Strategy: Managing Alliance Groups
(Ivey Business Journal) Becoming part of an multi-partner constellation can help a company compete and win. But a succeeding with…
Competitive Advantage in Alliance Constellations
(Strategic Organization) What determines the success of a firm competing as part of an alliance constellation? The elements of a…
Group versus Group: How Alliance Networks Compete
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Collaboration in business is no longer confined to conventional two-company alliances, such…
Alliance Capability
Alliance Sweet Talk: Tough Questions Worth Asking
(Milestone Group Newsletter) How should investors react when they catch high-tech CEOs singing love songs to each other? First, with…
Alliance: The Secrets of Successful Cooperation
(The Novartis Journal) Alliances between companies have become crucial to business success, particularly in hightech industries. But, too much emphasis…
Global Alliances
Learning by Joint Venture — NUMMI
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Last week, Toyota announced it will close the plant of New…
Fuji Xerox: Competing in Constellations
(Strategy + Business) Describes 40-year relationship between Xerox and Fuji Photo Film. This is successful US-Japanese joint venture holds important…
Joint Ventures in the Face of Global Competition
(Sloan Management Review) Presents a framework to help managers decide when to use a joint venture in investments abroad. Factors…
Tech Alliances
Three Types of Acquisitions — Lessons from Microsoft and LinkedIn
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn is big and bold — and likely to…
How Divestments Create Value — The Case of Yahoo!
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Just as the M&A party appears to be winding down, the divestment…
The Strategy Behind the Deal — Questions About Dell-EMC
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The news that Dell will acquire EMC is déjà vu all over…
Creating Joint Value
(Strategic Alliance Magazine) In Biopharma and many other industries, “Not Invented Here” is SO Last Century. Joint value is the…
From Rivals to Partners — IBM and Apple
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The lynchpin of the new IBM-Apple alliance will be this simple…
Exit and Loyalty — Yahoo and Tumbler
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | As Yahoo goes through with its acquisition of Tumblr, CEO Marissa Mayer…
The False Security of Contracts — HP vs Oracle
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Hewlett Packard and Oracle are embroiled in a marriage spat that would…
Microsoft and Yahoo: Too Little, Too Late, Too Hyped
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | It took over a year to for Microsoft and Yahoo to to…
Managing Co-Development Projects
Product Development Report (2003) Joint development of products and businesses is becoming common in many industries. Managers should apply the…
Anti-trust
In 2018, Did Business Get Too Big?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | In THE NEW YORK TIMES | December 21, 2018 The number of mega mergers announced this year raises…
The CVS-Aetna Merger Hinges on One Question: What Do Consumers Get Out of It?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | November 7, 2017 The proposed merger of CVS and Aetna will test what it…
How Mergers and Partnerships Change The Way You Compete
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | M&A and partnership deals are at an all-time high. But what about…
The 10 most remarkable deals — and busts — of 2016
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in PBS MAKING SEN$E | Editor’s note: Even if the volume of mergers and acquisitions fell short…
The “Curse of Bigness” Today
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in PBS MAKING SEN$E | Portions of this article are from the author’s article in Harvard Business Review,…
Mergers vs Regulators — Lessons from Halliburton, Pfizer, and Staples
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Regulatory authorities in the United States have been active in questioning mergers…
How Alliances Reshape Competition
(Handbook of Strategic Alliances) Alliances are intended to help firms cooperate better and also to help them compete better. Are…
American Airlines and British Airways
(Providence Journal Op-Ed) U.S. Justice Department blocks AA-BA deal. It does not believe that AA and BA could cooperate in…
Microsoft Verdict Reveals Dark Side of Strategic Alliances
(Unpublished Op-Ed) Judge Penfield Jackson’s verdict in the Microsoft anti-trust case last week should be required reading for any corporate…
Small Firm Alliances
Alliance Strategies of Small Firms
(Small Business Economics) Concludes that small firms follow one of two alliance strategies. When the firms are small relative to…
Definitions
How Mergers and Partnerships Change The Way You Compete
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | M&A and partnership deals are at an all-time high. But what about…
A Partnership Is Not a Purchase Order
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | Scott McNealy, ex-CEO of Sun Microsystems, tweeted this message last month: “Most…
Outsourcing: Where Will You Draw the Line?
By Ben Gomes-Casseres | Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW | The Defense Department is due to report to Congress that in Afghanistan,…
Alliances: Encyclopedia Definition
(Encyclopedia International Political Economy) An inter-firm alliance is an organizational structure to govern an incomplete contract between separate firms and…
In 2018, Did Business Get Too Big?
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By Ben Gomes-Casseres | In THE NEW YORK TIMES | December 21, 2018 The number of mega mergers announced this year raises…