Strategic alliances and shared IS/IT infrastructrues in b2b marketplaces: an exploratory case

In the late 1990’s researchers believed that B2B markets were set to revolutionise e-procurement. New marketplaces were being created on an almost weekly basis to cater for the procurement needs of numerous and diverse industry sectors. More recently however, researchers have noted that many B2B markets are under performing and failure rates are high. We draw upon research on strategic alliances and application service provision to explore the possibility of markets improving their performance through entering strategic alliances to share technology. We document and explain a model developed by Eutilia, a leading B2B market in the utilities sector to justify such technology alliances. We explain how Eutilia operationalised this model, through entering a technology alliance with another leading B2B marketplace. The results demonstrate that both markets benefited from this technology alliance and that Eutilia achieved significant performance improvements. We believe that other marketplaces could potentially improve their performance through similar alliances.