Target has agreed to sell their Pharmacy business to CVS for $1.9B. CVS is a retail rival for many items that Target sells. Why invite them to share space in Target stores? A USA Today article identifies five likely reasons: 1) Complexity of the healthcare business, 2) Profitability was lacking, 3) Scale (since CVS can leverage many more locations), 4) It allows Target to focus on other businesses and 5) Foot traffic from CVS will increase other sales (complementarities). These factors tip the scales from integration to creating value through a strategic alliance — an opportunity, perhaps to apply the “Four C” alliance framework or the Resource Pathways framework to assess the opportunities and risks. This might also stimulate a nice discussion of Nalebuff and Brandenburger’s Coopetition framework. To what extent do the cited reasons (in the USA Today article) dovetail with the issues identified in the frameworks? What is left out of the more naive analysis?

Contributed by Russ Coff