UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
(ECO 740)

SUMMARY ON GROUP PRESENTATION

“Strategic Alliance: National auto industry
should seek a form of strategic alliances with
foreign automotive companies to be
competitive”

Prepared By:

EILEENA BINTI AHMADUL BADUWI

(2011603646)
EXECUTIVE MASTER IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (EMBA)
FACULTY OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Prepared For:
ASSOCIATE PROFESOR DR AZIZ B SULAIMAN
 Date of Submission:
12 MEI 2012
PRESENTATION TITLE: Strategic Alliance: National auto industry should seek a form of
strategic alliances with foreign automotive companies to be competitive.

The group has presented a case study related to the strategic alliances on national auto industry.
The aim of the strategic alliance is to ensure competitiveness advantages among few related
companies who have the interest in the auto industry. According to the group Strategic
Alliance is a relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed objectives or
goals to meet a business need while remaining independent organizations. There are two (2)
main forms of strategic alliances, which is non-contractual partnership and equity arrangement.
Non-contractual partnership are joint collaboration between two (2) parties for research &
development, manufacturing and marketing which mutually complimentary access assets or
skills and lastly standard setting or R&D firm consortia. Equity arrangement is strategic
alliance in the form of minority equity investment, equity swaps or joint ventures. Strategic
alliance is important for companies to remain competitive, operating at more efficiency
standard and easy to venture into new market. In the 2nd part of the presentation, they explore
Proton’s current collaboration with few automotives companies such as Nissan, LOTUS and
Mitsubishi. For example, Proton Holdings Berhad in 2011 signed a MOU with Nissan Motor
Co. Ltd. to studies on specific areas of cooperation between the Parties including the potential
use of Nissan's platform and power train. Other example of automotive companies’
collaboration was between GM and TOYOTA, Ford and Mazda etc. For the case of Nissan-
Renault, the specific collaboration’s objectives are to improve quality, reduce costs, reduce
debt and internationalize, while the common objectives are for economy of scale and
technological know-how. After the collaboration process, there’s an increase in sales of 5.9%
(2004/2005) for Nissan-Renault.

ISSUE DISCUSSED:
Some of the issues that were raised during the Q and A session are:
1. Why strategic alliances are not so successful among companies in Malaysia?
Some of the problem faced by companies are allies are reluctant to share ideas and support.
This might be due to strangers being grouped together and told to form an alliance. This
sometimes happens in organizations where two or more teams are brought together with
no mutual connection; lots of great ideas, but no one actually creating an action plan or
 moving the alliance forward; lots of great ideas, but either no time, expertise or money to
execute the alliance; two parties didn’t come out with the proper agreement during the
negotiations part and company’s policy and values which prevent companies to collaborate.

2. Not all strategic alliance successful in producing Proton JUARA and Proton TIARA.
Proton, as is well known, has several times made a mistake in issuing their new
models. First of all, when they issued a Proton Tiara model to compete with the Perodua
Kancil, the model is much less for a model that gives good value for the buyer. After the
failure of the market model Tiara, Proton once again produces Proton Juara. The
introduction in the market model has been seen as a continuation of
the Proton mistake before. Proton JUARA have failed in the market as early as the day it
was launched. Why is it happened?
According to the group; Proton JUARA and TIARA lack of R&D. During the time Proton
produce Proton TIARA which its origin of Citroen brand, without R&D and also prior
review whether the model is worth to sell in Malaysian markets and the engine used were
those being rejected by the European markets (Citroen). While failure of Proton JUARA as
agreed by many is that the design and appearance is very strange and does not meet the
need of the buyers, which let alone to compete with other models which are more stylish.

3. What are the best strategies to choose a strategic alliance partnership?

a. Firstly, look and explore which market we want to penetrate.
b. What kind of technologies is needed by our company?
c. Establish a set of criteria’s to evaluate potential partners.
d. The estimation cost involves in the alliance.
e. The common management values.

4. What are the best conditions to put two institutions for strategic alliance partnership?
Techniques to build a strong alliance with your suppliers:
a. Look for partners who wanted to partner with you
b. Spend your time building those relationships with your suppliers that will help you
to serve your market and improve your bottom line
c. Ask your supplier “What can I do for you?” --- We can help to come up with
strategies for the end- users to buy better from the manufacturers in a way that
served the manufacturers
5. Which industries most suitable for a strategic partnership?
Strategic partnership can apply both to manufacturers and also service providers. The basic
understanding for any companies to do collaboration is to complement each other, enhance
market and increase total revenues.

6. What is the significance for the collaboration between Air Asia and MAS?
The earlier collaboration is a positive move to eliminate competitive pricing, allow
economies of scale, higher bargaining power and synergies.

MY POINT OF VIEW:
Strategic alliances are one of the stepping stone for companies to increase their competitiveness
and at the same time increase global networking. According to Wheelan and Hungar (2000), a
strategic alliance is an agreement between firms to do business together in ways that go beyond
normal company-to-company dealings, but fall short of a merger or a full partnership. These
alliances range from informal ‘handshake’ agreements to formal agreements with lengthy
contract in which the parties may also exchange equity, or contribute capital to form a joint
venture corporation. Usually seen as a win-win partnership, strategic alliances is seen provide
benefits in term of enhancing knowledge, expertise, technology enhancement, while companies
will have greater benefits from lower production costs and greater market access. As an effort
to increase the level of competitiveness, the emphasis is also given to improve quality and
standard of products and services. It is supported by Brucellaria (1997) stated the potential of
strategic alliances is enormous. If implemented correctly, some authors claim it can
dramatically improve and organization’s operations and competitiveness. At the same time by
working together companies join forces technology, knowledge, expertise, finance, logistics,
etc. Companies are forming alliances to obtain technology, to gain access to specific markets,
to reduce financial risk, to reduce political risk and to achieve or ensure competitive advantage
(Wheelen and Hungar, 2000). According to an article by Infosky, some of the potential benefits
that companies could achieve are such as: gaining capabilities, easier access to target market,
sharing the financial risks, winning the political obstacle and lastly achieving synergies and
competitive advantage.

For issue related to automotive strategic partnership, Proton's history of strategic partnership
with international automotives companies has started since its establishment. Proton has
been carrying out collaboration with Mitsubishi, Renault, Citroen AX and MV Agusta. Since it
ended their collaboration with Mitsubishi, Proton has been seeking strategic partners from
various companies. I feel that failure by Proton to find a foreign partner is a sign that it is no
longer a competitive and economically declining market share that causes Proton to lose money
when other finds profits. At a press conference on January 26, 2012, Tun Dr. Mahathir
Mohamed said the decline in share prices of Proton Holdings Bhd to its lowest level to a level
below while at RM5.00 showed erosion of investor confidence in the future uncertainty of the
national car manufacturers to establish a strategic partnership with foreign car makers.
Uncertainty hit on the ability of Proton to establish ties with foreign car manufacturers.
Strategic partnership between Proton and DRB-HICOM Proton hopes to find ways to allow for
sharing of technology from motorsport companies as large as Volkswagen, Honda
and Suzuki who is a partner of DRB-HICOM. Based on my opinion there are many factors for
unsuccessful strategic alliance between Proton and its allies. Some of it maybe there is a
political interference on the management of Proton Holdings, lack of sales due to
unattractiveness design on the car, mismanagement and financial misjudgment by Proton
Holdings such as on the issue of Proton Holdings had bought MV Agusta in 2006 for RM368
million which it had then sold for only one euro (RM5) to an unknown company in Italy - Gevi
SpA, Proton at a loss of RM500 million (Press Statement by Lim Guan Eng in Penang on
Thursday, 7th August 2008).

So many benefits can be obtained if companies decided to undergo a strategic partnership but
not all companies’ successful undergo a strategic partnership. According to Kalmbach and
Roussel (1999) 60% of strategic alliances fail. It is due to (a) clash of cultures and
‘incompatible personal chemistry’, (b) lack of trust, (c) lack of clear goals and objectives, (d)
lack of coordination between management teams, (e) differences in operating procedures and
attitudes among partners, (f) relational risks, and (g) performance risks (Elmuti and Kathawala,
2001). So in order to ensure the successful of strategic alliances, companies must consider
those success factors, as reported in a survey by Technology Associates and Alliances (1999)
who asked 455 CEO’s to rank the importance of certain success factors for strategic alliances
are: (a) senior management commitement, (b) similarity of management philosophies, (c)
effective and strong management team, (d) frequent performance feedback, (e) clearly defined,
shared goals and objectives, (f) thorough planning, (g) clearly understood roles, (g)
international vision, (h) partner selection, and (i) communication between partners:maintaining
relationship.
As a conclusion, strategic alliance is beneficial and it can exist in many forms. As mentioned
above, cooperation in the sharing of production facilities, combining of knowledge, skills and
technology, marketing of each other’s products using existing distribution networks and co-
funding of projects are the collective forms of strategic alliances.

REFERENCES

Brucellaria, M. (1997). Strategic Alliances Spell Success. Management Accounting, Vol. 77,
No. 7, August.

Elmuti, D. and Kathawala, Y. (2001). An Overview of Strategic Alliances. Management

Decision. 39/3. MCB University Press.

INFOSKY- Business Multi Info

http://infosky.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/five-potential-benefits-of-strategic-alliance/

Kalmbach, C. Jr. and Roussel, R. (1999). Dispelling the myths of alliances.

http://www.2c.com.html, 16 November.

Malaysian Automotive Institute

http://www.mai.org.my/ver1/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1563:pasaran-
dunia-kini-lebuh-raya-proton&catid=3:newsflash

Technology Associates and Alliances (1999).

http://www.vecltd.org/techas/formation.html. 5 June.

http://dapmalaysia.org/english/2008/aug08/lge/lge891.htm

Wheelan, T.L. and Hungar, D.J. (2000). Strategic Management and Business Policy, 7th ed.
Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY.