Essentials of Strategic Management: The Quest for Competitive Advantage 4th Edition by John Gamble, Arthur Thompson, Margaret Peteraf

Exercise 3

Collaborative agreements with foreign companies in the form of strategic alliances or joint ventures are widely used as a means of entering foreign markets. They are also used as a means of acquiring resources and capabilities by learning from foreign partners. And they are used to put together powerful combinations of complementary resources and capabilities by accessing the complementary resources and capabilities of a foreign partner. Concepts Connections 7.1 provides examples of four cross-border strategic alliances in which Solazyme has participated. What were each of these partnerships (with Unilever, Sephora, Qantas, and Roquette) designed to achieve, and why would they make sense for a company such as Solazyme? (Analyze each partnership separately based on the information provided in the capsule.)