Building Strategic Relationships

Few organizations can afford all the specialized expertise and technology they need to respond nimbly to emerging needs, regardless of the type of clients they serve. As market demands grow increasingly complex and resources are strained, strategic alliances and joint ventures are becoming business as usual--not only within business sectors, but between them as well. When these alliances succeed, they open up whole new worlds for the participating partners: new products and services, new markets, access to resources, smarter ways of doing things.

Building Strategic Relationships shows how successful alliances are launched, developed, and concluded--within the corporate world and between corporate entities and government or nonprofit institutions. The authors draw from more than two hundred interviews and seventy-five case studies of varied partnerships--including a customer-supplier alliance between a newspaper publisher and a newsprint supplier, a joint venture between a school district and a major accounting firm, and others--to provide perspective, guidance, and detailed case examples that will help progressive partners achieve their goals in all phases of partnership.

WILLIAM BERGQUIST is president of the Professional School of Psychology in San Francisco and Sacramento and the author of twenty-five books on management, psychology, and education, including The Postmodern Organization (Jossey-Bass, 1993). JULI BETWEE is an international management consultant and a principal in HRMG, Inc. DAVID MEUEL is a corporate speechwriter and public relations consultant to Silicon Valley senior executives.