It is common knowledge that reduced product life cycles increase the pressure on firms to develop new products, which often creates considerable stress on the organization’s R&D function and its budgetary constraints. Similarly, increasingly competitive global supply chains place enormous pressures on supply chain managers to develop new processes that enhance both cost efficiencies and customer services. Like new product development, new process development can be extraordinarily expensive…and risky. Yet time and time again, we see long-term collaborative partnerships as the most innovative way to develop processes that both reduce costs and add value for the partners. for profitability scraps. Yet two reassuring developments are undermining that premise.