First things first: Hat tip to @tracymgoodson for the link to the Reuters article, Pepsi, Anheuser to Jointly Buy Goods, Services.
One cynical way to read this is, "Hmmm...I wonder whether this is the first step toward a merger?" Another is, "Great. Two 800 lb. gorillas become one 1600 lb. gorilla--it's not like we have enough of that in Corporate America..."
But the non-cynical takeaway for me was, "Wow, two corporate behemoths actually managed to get over themselves long enough to grok co-opetition!" But the point I want to hammer on is that one of the most sustainable ways to cut costs is to make it easy to do business in the first place. In the case of this partnership, a vendor only has to negotiate terms with one company, or send out a single invoice. Understandably, that reduces overhead for both customer and vendor. Which is a win-win if ever was. But. It requires giving up a certain amount of corporate self-centeredness. That, of course, is the difficult part. Companies like WalMart are notorious for squeezing vendors without taking any responsibility for reducing the cost of selling to them.
Although I've pretty much outgrown my taste for Mountain Dew and am extremely picky (and Wisconsin-centric) in beer, I do hope that the Pepsi-Anheuser partnership becomes a model of sorts. Assuming, of course, that this isn't just yet another exercise in racing to the bottom. Because there's a lot to be said for co-opetition. Most notably that it belies the zero-sum nonsense that passes for business strategy.
