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Abstract
Global strategic alliance and coalition is a diffuse way of effective combination of strengths of companies aiming at entering new markets, exploring new technologies, bypassing government entry restrictions and to learn quickly from the leading firm in the partnership, all in an effort to exploit foreign investment opportunities. Strategic alliances are however, not easy to develop and support. They often fail because of technical errors made by management of member firms. To make it a success, a strong and efficient alliance agreement has to be in place to enable companies to gain in markets that would otherwise be uneconomical. Building alliances requires considerable time and energy from all parties involved with a detailed plan, expectations, limitations and scopes, and the likely benefits drivable from the project. Alliances take a number of forms and go by various labels. Alliances may be contracts, limited partnerships, general partnerships, or corporate joint ventures, or may take less formal forms, such as a referral network. The paper is aimed at exploring and educating prospective and allied businesses or firms the need and significance of across border coalition, and how to go about it. It is a literature based paper and therefore, reviews related literatures from journal articles, texts, seminar papers and some online sources for better understanding of the concept. The paper looked into issues in building global strategic alliances and coalitions, developing a global strategy, why the formation of alliances, issues in selecting alliances partners, stages involved, and benefits drivable from such partnership. It further highlights the conceivable types of strategic alliance and sighted examples of real life alliances. It was found that global alliances had helped big firms explore new international markets and new technological competencies. Thus the paper recommends that a firm, who really wants to have a global touch, would have to start through alliances or coalition.
Key words: Strategic alliance, Globalization, Strategy, Coalition, Foreign Direct Investment
Introduction
Change is an ever present facet of business development. Businesses transfer ownership, for example, and end up reformulating their entire business structures. Companies hire outside consultants to advise restructuring during financial crises. Sometimes the fact that businesses go global is the product of the inevitable ebb and flow of commerce. An overseas buyer may transfer operations...