By alliance we will understand a cooperation mechanism between companies, where each participating company, maintaining its legal independence and managerial autonomy, voluntarily decides to participate in a joint effort with the other participants in search of a common goal.
Common objectives can be circumstantial or generate a more stable relationship over time. The joint effort of the participants in the alliance can be materialized in different ways, from the hiring of a jointly paid seller, to the joint formation of a company with legal personality and its own assets, for the manufacture or marketing of products (joint-venture).
The term alliance arises as one of the cooperation mechanisms between companies that are facing the process of globalization. Economic globalization is redefining the mechanisms of interrelation with the environment, in search of more viable strategies to face competition.
The need to design collective strategies becomes, in many cases, a basic survival requirement for SMEs.
To achieve the best state of competitiveness, it is necessary to find a way to operate at a lower cost when entering the market, for which it is necessary to exclude conditions such as poor distribution channels, high production costs, or high stocks to satisfy the instability of the market. demand and avoid long delivery times or long sales cycles.
