Strategic Alliance was a fad. It coursed through the Calgary business community and seemingly had run its course.

Leverage is just now quietly entering a more serious and real phase. But it has remained a viable alternative for cost savings, speed and innovation among serious practitioners: those who are prepared to work at it, to search out barriers to collaborative work and root them out.

Alliance has become a byword for those who have the staying power to get past the superficial startup glamour - the short term interest - into the real payoffs that can come with hard work:

• blended work forces
• creating unique work processes
• on the basis of assumptions that are not possible without alliance
• that can accomplish unheard of speed to finish
• wiping away bureaucracy
• reducing cycle time and complexity
• cutting cost
• preserving capacity

Our alliance building is focused on:

• The underlying nature of strategic alliance and partnering
• What’s really driving partnering now
• Differences between partnering, alliance, preferred relationship, and leverage
• The varietals that are possible
• The challenge of true partnering: Trust: how it works
• The phases of experience in the development of strategic alliance
• Where partnering has been explored and dropped
• Why alliance will fail and why it will succeed
• What it takes to be a player in partnering
• Who wins, how and how long does it take?
• Measuring success
• Competition and Alliance
• What strategic alliance is, and isn’t
• The future of partnering: Where it can go? How far can you take it?