Until now, the relationship between a company and its customers or suppliers has consisted of arms-length haggling over the price of a part or a service. Today, reveals alliance expert Jordan D. Lewis, customers and suppliers are actually embracing each other-sharing data, design work, and even research and development. The result, Lewis finds, has been a dramatic improvement in each firm's costs, quality, cycle times, and customer satisfaction-without added expense. Building on his groundbreaking work, Partnerships for Profit, Lewis shows managers how to maximize the potential of these new customer-supplier alliances-described by the Wall Street Journal as a "revolution"-by drawing upon his hands-on experience and research with best-practice firms worldwide such as Motorola, Chrysler, and Marks & Spencer. Although more and more firms now recognize the importance of customer-supplier alliances, few actually know how to make them work. Using interviews with employees ranging from top...