Global Strategies

Example……..

This past August, 2019 Symphony Health, an American owned company, announced a new international alliance between its data solutions division and Close-Up International, a medical prescription company based out of (and owned by) Mexico. The alliance seeks to “build and strengthen relationships for both organizations in the United States and Latin America” while simultaneously leading research to produce new and better products and services to their clients (GlobeNewswire, 2019). 

The alliance forming between Symphony Health and Close-Up International appears to be more of an upstream/downstream vertical alliance. Where one company (Symphony Health) shares data and information with another company (Close-Up International) who then uses this information to produce better products and services to clients. This in turn would boost sales. The two companies are not necessarily competing with each other, but rather working together to reach a common goal. Due to its lack of competition and trade in information the bond between these two firms will most likely result in a strong tie, which the text defines as “more durable, reliable, and trustworthy relationships cultivated over a long period of time...associated with the exchange of finer grained and higher quality information” (Peng, 2014). 

I would predict that this alliance would succeed for a while. However, Symphony Health is owned by a larger company, PRA Health Sciences, which is a global research organization. The article states that one of the goals of this alliance is to strengthen ties between American and Latin American firms. It may be that PRA Health Sciences is interested in expanding internationally into Latin America but it would like to get a taste of the market first. So instead of investing right off the bat, they are dipping in via an alliance to see what they can learn. In the end they may terminate the alliance to open their own locations which would then be in competition with Close-Up International. 

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