Co-opetition (Brandenburger and Nalebuff)

Competitors do not only divide value; they can sometimes cooperate to create a larger market or a more efficient system before competing over their shares. Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff—also associated with Complements as a sixth force (Brandenburger and Nalebuff)—use game theory to show how customers, suppliers, rivals and complementors can change the game together.

When to use it

• Use co-opetition when cooperation with a competitor or adjacent player could create value that neither party can produce alone.
• Apply the PARTS framework when you need to change the players, added value, rules, tactics or scope of the competitive game.
• Use it to examine complements, standards, shared infrastructure, ecosystem growth or another legitimate area of cooperation while preserving independent competition.
• Obtain legal advice where competition law may constrain information sharing, coordination or agreements among rivals.

Origins

Game theory became a formal discipline through John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (nineteen forty-four), followed by John Nash’s work on strategic equilibrium. The term co-opetition was popularised in business by Novell chief executive Ray Noorda around nineteen ninety-two to describe simultaneous cooperation and competition in the computer industry. Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff developed the strategic approach in Co-opetition (nineteen ninety-six), introducing the value net and PARTS framework. Their contribution was not the invention of collaboration among rivals, but a systematic way to analyse how it changes value creation and bargaining.

What it is

Brandenburger and Nalebuff’s central claim is that business can involve mutual success and competitive struggle at the same time. Firms may cooperate to establish a standard, develop a supplier, expand demand or solve a shared infrastructure problem, then compete independently on proposition, price and execution. Co-opetition therefore asks how to enlarge the total value created as well as how to capture a defensible share.

Game theory studies choices whose outcomes depend on the choices of other players. The prisoners’ dilemma illustrates why individually rational action can create a worse joint result. Two prisoners are questioned separately. Confessing is attractive to each given uncertainty about the other, although both would receive a better combined outcome if both stayed silent.

The pattern appears in arms races, widespread defensive gun ownership and protectionist escalation: each participant responds to the others, producing a costly equilibrium that no one would choose collectively. In business, reciprocal discounting or advertising can have the same structure. Coke and Pepsi may both increase advertising while relative shares remain broadly stable because each neutralises the other. The insight is not that competitors should collude or stop competing, but that the game’s incentives, commitments and lawful opportunities for joint value creation deserve explicit analysis.

How to use it

Map the value net around the organisation: customers and suppliers sit on the vertical axis, while competitors and complementors sit across it. A complementor makes the offering more valuable when its own product or service is available. The same organisation may be a competitor in one activity and a complementor in another.

Analyse the game through PARTS:

• Players. Identify customers, suppliers, competitors and complementors. Ask who is missing, who could enter and who benefits if a new participant joins. Bringing in another supplier may improve resilience; enabling a complementor may expand demand; a competitor may recruit a player that weakens your position.
• Added value. Estimate what each participant contributes by comparing the value net with and without it. Increase your own indispensability through distinctive capability, loyalty, scarcity or complements, while recognising where another player holds bargaining power.
• Rules. Examine contracts, regulation, standards, pricing conventions and other constraints. Which rules help or hinder you? What lawful terms would improve exchange with customers and suppliers? Can you influence a rule, and how easily could another player reverse it?
• Tactics. Consider how each player perceives the game and how those beliefs affect action. Decide what information to reveal, clarify or withhold legitimately. A credible commitment, demonstration or reframing can change expectations without changing the underlying facts.
• Scope. Decide which games should be linked or separated. Bundling a complement, sharing a platform or separating a negotiation can change bargaining and value creation. Test who gains and what new dependencies result.

Generate several moves for each element, anticipate responses and test the resulting value net. Define the cooperative domain, competitive domain, governance, information boundaries, exit terms and measures of shared and individual value. Repeat the analysis as players and rules change.

Value net, co-opetition and PARTS

The diagram highlights rules as one of five levers; it should be read together with players, added value, tactics and scope rather than treated as a stand-alone contractual exercise.

Top practical tip

Separate value creation from value capture. State exactly where rivals can cooperate, where they must compete independently and what information and governance boundaries keep that distinction credible.

Top pitfall

Do not confuse co-opetition with collusion or assume trust removes strategic risk. Rival cooperation long predates the label, and any arrangement must create lawful mutual value without coordinating competitive conduct.

Further reading

• Brandenburger, A.M. and Nalebuff, B.J. (nineteen ninety-six). Co-opetition. Currency/Doubleday.
• Brandenburger, A.M. and Stuart, H.W. (nineteen ninety-six). “Value-Based Business Strategy.” Journal of Economics & Management Strategy.