1. What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Strategic Alliances

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the strategic alliances?

Advantages

* Access to Supplementary Services 

a. One of the most attractive benefits of an alliance with another business is the opportunity to offer supplementary services to clients that otherwise would not be available. It is vital to a business’ success to focus on its core competencies because when a business becomes a jack of all trades, it becomes a master of none. An alliance allows a company to offer its clients a whole new realm of services without losing focus on its capabilities and its specialized services.    

* Opportunity to Reach New Markets 

b. Entering a strategic alliance will automatically increase awareness of a brand among an entirely new market that the franchise business has not had the resources to reach beforehand. In most cases of franchising alliances, a partner will be a business that offers a completely different set of services to a market that is similar to its own, allowing the business to increase its market size with little impact on the franchise business. 

* Increased Brand Awareness 

c. The opportunity to grow market size with a partnership presents the additional opportunity to increase awareness of     the brand. One of the key elements of a business’ success is constant, growing brand awareness. If your brand awareness isn’t growing, your business isn’t growing. Strategic alliances allow an organization to reach a broader audience without putting in extra time and capital.    

* Access to New Customer Base 

d. A franchise business is constantly searching for new, creative ways to increase its clientele and reach new potential customers, and forming a strategic alliance provides an opportunity to do that. A trusting, solid business partnership will provide access to a completely new customer base that the franchise would not have had access to otherwise.    

Potential Challenges 

* Choosing the Right...