Alternatively, it may be a very loose arrangement designed largely to impress customers and competitors with the size of the network that the business partners belong to.
It is important that both sides of the agreement complement each other and have some common ground, for example in management style, mindset, and technology.
[1] The meaning of the term is quite different from that implied in partnership, and it is because of the potential for confusion between the two that widespread use of 'business partner' has been discouraged at times in the past.
[2] Members of this IT-focused alliance include Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems and SAP.
Two mostly used mechanisms are legal contracts and social norms (e.g., trust, prior relationships, or continuity of future collaboration).