Q. IBM has improved its trade performance and created value for customers through numerous strategic alliances. These cooperative strategies have lead to new sources of competitive advantage and have benefitted both IBM and its alliance partners.
1) Explain how alliances have benefitted a large organization like IBM and explain why it didn't just conduct trade on its own. Students should realize which alliances are often very cost-effective and even large industries don't possess all the necessary expertise.
2) Identify and other industries which use alliances and if they imagine alliances will be used more or less in the future than they are today.