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To make it through the downturn and return to growth, companies will need to rewire operations, reallocate resources, and in some cases reinvent business models. Joint ventures and partnerships can help many firms with those efforts. In this article, three consultants outline how companies can shore up their existing JVs through capital-raising, cost-reduction, and synergy-tapping techniques that often aren't available to wholly owned entities. The authors then describe how parent companies can strengthen their own financial positions by using JVs and partnerships to make partial divestments, consolidate businesses, and collaborate on capital-light, low-risk growth initiatives. JVs are already ubiquitous in sectors under pressure, like energy, and in innovative industries such as life sciences. At numerous firms, they drive a large share of earnings. Given that their returns have been climbing, their impact is quite likely to remain strong or even increase in the foreseeable future.

A 2004 McKinsey survey of more than 30 companies reveals that at least 70% of them have major alliances that are underperforming and in need of restructuring. Moreover, JVs that broaden or otherwise adjust their scope have a 79% success rate, vs. 33% for ventures that remain essentially unchanged. Yet, most firms don't routinely evaluate the need to overhaul their alliances or intervene to correct performance problems. That means corporations are missing huge opportunities: By revamping just one large alliance, a company can generate $100 million to $300 million in extra income a year. Here's how to unlock more value from alliances: (1) Launch the process. Don't wait until your venture is in the middle of a crisis; regularly scan your major alliances to determine which need restructuring. Once you've targeted one, designate a restructuring team and find a senior sponsor to push the process along. Then delineate the scope of the team's work. (2) Diagnose performance. Evaluate the venture on the following performance dimensions: ownership and financials, strategy, operations, governance, and organization and talent. Identify the root causes of the venture's problems, not just the symptoms, and estimate how much each problem is costing the company. (3) Generate restructuring options. Based on the diagnosis, decide whether to fix, grow, or exit the alliance. Assuming the answer is fix or grow, determine whether fundamental or incremental changes are needed, using the five performance dimensions above as a framework. Then assemble three or four packages of restructuring options, test them with shareholders, and gain parents' approval. (4) Execute the changes. Embark on a widespread and consistent communication effort, building support among executives in the JV and the parent companies. So the process stays on track, assign accountability to certain groups or individuals.

More than 5,000 joint ventures, and many more contractual alliances, have been launched worldwide in the past five years. Companies are realizing that JVs and alliances can be lucrative vehicles for developing new products, moving into new markets, and increasing revenues. The problem is, the success rate for JVs and alliances is on a par with that for mergers and acquisitions--not very good. The authors, all McKinsey consultants, argue that JV success remains elusive for most companies because they don't pay enough attention to launch planning and execution. The launch phase begins with the parent companies' signing of a memorandum of understanding and continues through the first 100 days of the JV or alliance's operation. During this period, it's critical for the parents to convene a team dedicated to exposing inherent tensions early. Specifically, the launch team must tackle four basic challenges. First, build and maintain strategic alignment across the separate corporate entities, each of which has its own goals, market pressures, and shareholders. Second, create a shared governance system for the two parent companies. Third, manage the economic interdependencies between the corporate parents and the JV. And fourth, build a cohesive, high-performing organization (the JV or alliance). Using real-world examples, the authors offer their suggestions for meeting these challenges.

Increasingly, senior executives who wish to expand their company's product, geographic, or customer reach consider alliances to be the strategic vehicle of choice. In the past five years, the number of domestic and cross-border alliances has grown by more than 25% annually. But the term alliance can be deceptive: in many cases, it really means an eventual transfer of ownership. The median life span for alliances is only about seven years, and nearly 80% of joint ventures end in a sale by one of the partners. Based on the author's experience with more than 200 alliances in various stages, they have developed a way for managers to diagnose whether an alliance is likely to lead to a sale and to devise an appropriate strategy--to assess bargaining positions and the risks of unplanned outcomes, and to plan for the partnership's evolution. They distinguish six types of alliances based on their probable outcomes: collisions between competitors, alliances of the weak, disguised sales, bootstrap alliances, evolutions to a sale, and alliances of complementary equals.

War stories about failed alliances make executives wary of forging new joint ventures. However, the strategic benefits of cross-border alliances are compelling. A study of 49 cross-border alliances found several patterns that have managerial implications. For example, alliances must be free to evolve as the environment changes and opportunities arise. Contrary to conventional wisdom, fifty-fifty ownership of joint ventures improves decision making, and most alliances end with one parent acquiring the venture.