With a lot of talk concerning the American auto industry lately, there have been rumors that General Motors Corp. (GM) and Ford Motor Co. (F) have had talks about merging or some type of alliance that would help to cut product development costs for the two companies.
While there is no doubt there have been talks, for now there is nothing in the wind. But it does bring up a point that we as business or managers need to consider at times: Would an alliance or merger of some sort with our competitors make us a better company?
Sometimes we so focus on the competition between us and our competitors, that we don't look at things from the point of view of 
potential partnerships.
This doesn't necessarily mean full-blown mergers, but it could mean potential agreements across all sorts of points in the companies.
Are there some suppliers out there that would give you bigger discounts if you made purchase above a certain amount? What if there were no way you could do that unless you partnered with someone doing business with the same supplier and combined purchases to get bigger discounts? It would be a win for everybody.
What about combined outsourcing? Health care? Benefits? These are things that some companies already pool together on to get better costs.
To me, there is a lot of untapped potential here for those that can think creatively and are willing to think outside the box.
This doesn't mean that you will not be competing with your partners, just that you will both benefit from combining resources at certain points you both may need help in. This could be done across numerous points in your businesses with more than one company.
This isn't for everybody, but it is definitely something to think hardly about in all the various points in running your businesses or departments. Large companies do this far more than is publicized and benefit greatly from it.
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