Peter F. Drucker on Practical Leadership

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Trend Toward Alliances for Progress

WHILE MERGERS AND TAKEOVERS, imports and exports grab headlines, business alliances rarely do. Nor do they generally show up in statistics. Yet for small and medium-sized businesses they are increasingly becoming the way to go international, and for big business, they are the way to become multi-technological.

Alliances of all kinds are becoming increasingly common, especially in international business: joint ventures; minority holdings (particularly cross-holdings, in which each partner owns the same percentage of the other); research and marketing compacts; cross-licensing and exchange-of-knowledge ...