The Vallue of Strategic Alliances

“The four pillars that underpin a strategic alliance are its Formation, Construction, Development and Evolution”, explained the lecturer at UPF Barcelona School of Management Marcos Eguiguren in the presentation of the book that he has co-authored with the ESADE lecturer ESADE Jaap Boonstra, “Strategic Alliances that Create Value”. The event was held recently at the UPF-BSM campus within the framework of the Ethics in Management Week, and was introduced by the Director General of the School, José Manuel Martínez-Sierra.

“Jaap and I began discussing this book a long time ago. There was a lot of overlap between our ideas and adventures so, four or five years ago, we came up with the outline for the book, which does not have too much in common with the end result”, recalled Professor Eguiguren about the origins of “Strategic Alliances that Create Value”.  Based on a theoretical framework created especially for the project, the book analyzes two real case studies: CEMS in the 1980s and, more recently, the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV). “What do they have in common?”, the authors asked themselves “Is there a pattern?”, before responding that this was indeed the case.

Professor Boonstra analyzed the alliances, a topic that fascinates him. “Alliances begin with a dream, a passion or an urgent need: educating future leaders to be respectful, conscientious and socially responsible, and contributing towards achieving peace and collaboration in Europe. It is a big ambition”, he added.

After the first two phases of Formation and Construction, the next step is Development, which could be globalization, for instance. Lastly, the expert explained that the Evolution stage involves reinventing yourself, which is also a very interesting phase. For example, how can an alliance maintain its identity while at the same time, evolving into another state?

The second part of the event consisted of a round table in which the authors were joined by Sonia Felipe, the Director of Communication and Marketing at the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), and Joan Cabezas, the CEO of Nactiva.

Sonia Felipe explained that the Alliance was founded in 2009 by a number of banks (starting with the 3 founding banks, the Alliance has grown to a total of 71 banks today, from 45 different countries around the world), bringing together “different businesses all with a common goal: promoting ethical, sustainable finance with a social impact”. She added that the GABV has two dimensions: the internal side, that strives to strengthen the banks and institutions that form part of the Alliance; and an external side that focuses on developing and uniting initiative to be able to influence the financial system.

She then passed over to Joan Cabezas, who described his organization, Nactiva, as “a  collective platform that brings together companies, NGOs, governments, financial institutions (current 12 top-tier companies and several smaller firms) with the common goal of protecting and regenerating the natural capital in and around the Mediterranean”. He acknowledged that this mission is both “a great dream and a huge challenge” but, nonetheless, it has managed to regenerate a far from insignificant area of 100,00 hectares.

Growing to Scale

When asked what keeps her awake at night, Sonia Felipe answered that “the most important thing is to create an alliance that has an impact because, unless the members see the value in it, they will form other alliances”. Meanwhile, Joan Cabezas stressed the importance of “having transformative projects that are supported by the members of the alliance and other institutions, and that grow to scale in order to achieve the mission. Sure, they have to take action, but they have to do so to scale”.

Lastly, a participant in the event asked the experts what the definition is of an alliance that creates value and that has a sustainable future. Professor Eguiguren defined it as “an association of completely independent, sovereign economic agents (i.e., primarily companies) working towards a common purpose that they all aspire to, that goes beyond their individual goal of making profit or even just the benefit of all the members. At all stages of the alliance, the most important elements are confidence and trust”, emphasized Professor Boonstra.