Strategic Alliances :: Bridges-info

Strategic Alliances

Bridges is open to alliances. One possibility would be to cooperate at the local office level with a major consultancy that offers, but does not exclusively specialize in, strategy services. To mention just two giants:

(1)IBM (with 400,000 employees) has a division Global Services that is the world´s largest IT consultancy with 190,000 employees and $58.9 billion revenues (2008). One of its six service lines is Strategy and Transformation, with 3,500 professionals.

(2) Deloitte Touche Tohamtsu focuses on financial and technology consulting, but also offers strategy services. It has 170,000 employees in 140 countries and an active Deloitte alliance network.

A second possibility could be cross-marketing with premier executive recruitment firms such as Boyden www.boyden.com and Egon Zehnder International www.egonzehnder.com, both headquartered in Zurich. A third would be an association with law firms such as Mayer Brown, JSM, www.mayerbrown.com with over 1000 attorneys located all over the world and Covington & Burling LLP¹ www.cov.com with 600 attorneys at offices in Beijing, Brussels, London, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, San Diego, Washington DC and interesting alliances with McLarty Associates² in Washington D.C. and Institution Quraysh for Law & Policy (iQ) in Qatar (with shared offices in London).

Their blue chip boutique counterparts would also be welcome, above all if internationally oriented. We are especially interested in "bridging the gap" of growing businesses in different cultures. The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey depicted below represents an interesting metaphorical example. It connects Europe, on the left, with Asia, on the right.

©*

Less likely would be a strategic alliance with the local office of a major advertising agency. A common problem in the industry is high client turnover. The prominent exception is the U.S. powerhouse, Leo Burnett. It has a classy, imaginative website, as one might expect from an advertising agency, www.leoburnett.com. The agency enjoys remarkable customer loyalty, often over decades, the envy of the industry.

In Spain it is run by the attractive, competent Isabel Onteso, a Harvard/IESE graduate who knows Spanish, French and English. One then notes that her counterpart in Germany knows not three, but five languages. However the website, as of 2011, does not list German as one of them, although he arrived in 2007! The person responsible for Central and Eastern Europe is also multilingual -- but knows no Slavic languages. (Hmmm, how many European multinationals have a company run in the U.S. by a CEO who speaks no English, getting by with, say, Spanish?)

Then comes the final nail in the coffin. The agency represents Philipp Morris, cf. footnote 1 below and also footnote 2 at "Mission," which last indicates just how lethal smoking is. (The U.S. Surgeon General´s report of 2010 has revised the long-term mortality rate up from one in three to about one in two.)

1 We are aware that Covington & Burley LLP did represent Philipp Morris in 1993. By the standards of the firm, trivial fees were received for minor work -- probably performed by a partner who smoked. The firm has a long tradition of exemplary pro bono work. It was also one of the first major law firms in the U.S. to elect women (1974) and blacks (1975) as partners, so the later ethical "smoking" slip should not be held against it.

(At one point in his career the author applied with mixed feelings to a tobacco giant for a senior marketing position. He would have been responsible for the entire continent of Africa, a high growth market for cigarettes. It entailed a salary and benefits package fairly described as "astronomical."

The power of indifference: to his considerable surprise, he was offered the position. He wrestled with his conscience. In a previous position for a Fortune 500 company his responsibilities had included selling weapons systems in Africa -- "merchant of death." He had had no qualms. But here secondary schools were the key target market -- selling "cancer sticks" to adolescents? He declined. Why had he even bothered to apply, he wondered afterwards.)

2 Covington & Burlington formed an alliance with Kissinger Associates in 2003, from which McLarty Associates spun off in January 2008, taking the law firm with it.

Strategic Alliances

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