This case describes the second home market strategy of Tata Communications Limited (TCL) and its evaluation of Russia as a new market opportunity. Ahead of a July 2012 board meeting, TCL's Chief Strategy Officer had to decide whether to pursue an acquisition opportunity in Russia. The case traces TCL's transformation from an Indian public sector monopoly to a global challenger in the telecommunications market, its previous acquisition history and its foray into South Africa as a second home market. The latest opportunity - to create a third home market in Russia - was the possible acquisition of a Russian Internet Service Provider (ISP) which had a business-to-business (B2B) focus and product mix similar to TCL.

A takeover usually signals the demise of one of the two corporations involved in the tussle - no prizes for guessing which one. Breaking with this practice, some companies from emerging markets are preserving the identity of companies they've taken over and giving them near-total autonomy. The acquirers (the AV Birla Group, the Mahindra group, and the Tata group in India; the Ulker Group in Turkey; and AmBev in Brazil, among others) have also retained the incumbent management teams, including the CEOs, of the corporations they bought. The new parents lay down new values and create a fresh sense of purpose, but they leave it to the acquisitions to carry them out. Some companies are better suited to adopt the partnering approach than others. Organizations with collaborative, inclusive cultures will have an easier time than companies with a hierarchical, command-and-control style. Senior executives in acquiring companies must be comfortable achieving goals through influence rather than control. They must also have a higher-than-average tolerance for ambiguity. Respect for new ideas is critical because executives must recognize the strengths of the acquired company and resist the urge to impose their way of doing things. These traits are encoded in some organizations' DNA, but others will have to develop them. These are early days yet, but the authors' research shows that the partnering approach to takeovers seems to work better than traditional postmerger integration practices, and it has created value for shareholders.

Emerging economies such as India have become an increasingly important part of the global business landscape. Until recently, multinational corporations (MNCs) relied on joint ventures (JVs) with local companies to exploit these business opportunities. Lately, however, there has been a marked reduction in the formation of new JVs between MNCs and local companies. Moreover, many earlier JVs also are increasingly being terminated, often with great acrimony. Highlights how "regulatory liberalization" of the business environment in India has played a big role, directly and indirectly, in driving this change. Also demonstrates how three other factors--"resource complementarity (or lack thereof) between partners," the "race to learn" between partners, and "returns to globalization to MNC partners"--are affecting the formation of JVs in an increasingly liberalized environment.

Acquisitions and alliances are two pillars of growth strategy. But most businesses don't treat the two as alternative mechanisms for attaining goals. Consequently, companies take over firms they should have collaborated with, and vice versa, and make a mess of both acquisitions and alliances. It's easy to see why companies don't weigh the relative merits and demerits of acquisitions and alliances before choosing horses for courses. The two strategies differ in many ways: Acquisition deals are competitive, based on market prices, and risky; alliances are cooperative, negotiated, and not so risky. Companies habitually deploy acquisitions to increase scale or cut costs and use partnerships to enter new markets, customer segments, and regions. Moreover, a company's initial experiences often turn into blinders. If the firm pulls off an alliance or two, it tends to enter into alliances even when circumstances demand acquisitions. Organizational barriers also stand in the way. In many companies, an M&A group, which reports to the finance head, handles acquisitions, whereas a separate business development unit looks after alliances. The two teams work out of different locations, jealously guard turf and, in effect, prevent companies from comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the strategies. But companies could improve their results, the authors argue, if they compared the two strategies to determine which is best suited to the situation at hand. Firms, such as Cisco, that use acquisitions and alliances appropriately grow faster than rivals do. The authors provide a framework to help organizations systematically decide between acquisition and alliance by analyzing three sets of factors: the resources and synergies they desire, the marketplace they compete in, and their competencies at collaborating.

Although there has been an explosion in the number of technology sourcing relationships between firms--including alliances, acquisitions, and all intermediate levels of equity ownership--managers lack a comprehensive framework to guide them in equity ownership decisions meant to access technology. Higher levels of equity ownership can provide benefits such as exclusive access to and control over critical resources, alignment of interests between partners, and better coordination and control of partner interaction. On the other hand, equity ownership also entails costs associated with implementing changes to organizational structures, in addition to lower employee motivation as well as commitment costs due to market or technological uncertainty.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. New research shows that among today's numerous strategic alliances, the most successful are in companies with a department specifically assigned to oversee alliances. Management professors Jeffrey H. Dyer, Prashant Kale, and Harbir Singh came to that conclusion after conducting an in-depth study of 200 corporations and their 1,572 alliances. They set out to discover why some companies manage alliances effectively when others fail. They found that organizations such as Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Eli Lilly & Co., and Parke Davis, which excel at generating value from alliances, have a dedicated strategic alliance function. Companies with a dedicated function were better at solving problems related to the four key alliance management elements: knowledge management, external visibility, internal coordination, and accountability. A dedicated function, the authors show, acts as a focal point for learning and for leveraging feedback from prior and ongoing alliances. It systematically establishes processes to articulate, document, codify, and share alliance know-how. One benefit of creating an alliance function was that it compelled companies to create metrics for evaluating the performance of all their alliances. And regular evaluations alerted senior managers to intervene when a particular alliance was struggling. Many companies with dedicated alliance functions report codifying alliance management knowledge. They create guidelines to help with specific aspects of the alliance life cycle, such as partner selection or alliance negotiation. When done properly, dedicated alliance functions offer internal legitimacy to alliances, assist in setting strategic priorities, and draw on resources across the company.