Quick reference
Key formula / structure
Customers, suppliers, competitors, complementors. Put each player in every box it occupies, then ask where you create value together and where you divide it.
Memory aid
Map roles, not companies. Your rival may also be your best partner.
TL;DR
Pick one decision. List the customers and suppliers you trade with, the competitors who make your product worth less and the complementors who make it worth more. Put any company that plays two roles in both boxes. For each pair, ask what you can create together and how the gains will be divided, then choose where to cooperate, where to compete, and the guardrails for any deal with a rival.
What Is Coopetition and the Value Net?
The value net is a map of the four kinds of players around a company. Customers and suppliers are the ones it trades with: supplies flow in from suppliers, products flow out to customers, and money flows the other way. Competitors and complementors are the ones it does not trade with: competitors make your product worth less to a customer, or bid for the same supplies, and complementors make it worth more. Coopetition is what the map makes visible: chances to cooperate with competitors, and reasons to compete with partners.
Along the horizontal dimension, however, managers tend to see only half the picture. Substitutors are seen only as enemies. Complementors, if viewed at all, are seen only as friends.
— Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff, "The Right Game: Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy," Harvard Business Review (July-August 1995)
Most managers already sort the companies around them into friends and enemies. The authors' point was that the sorting is the mistake. "Substitutors are seen only as enemies," they wrote. "Complementors, if viewed at all, are seen only as friends." Their own example is the airlines. American Airlines and United Air Lines fight for every passenger, yet they are complementors when they buy planes, "because Boeing can recoup the cost of a new plane design only if enough airlines buy it." "Each airline effectively subsidizes the other's purchase of planes," in their words. Google and Apple show the same thing at scale. Apple was the rival Google set out to beat in phones, and Android went on to run roughly 72% of the world's mobile devices. Yet in 2022 Google paid Apple about $20 billion to be Safari's default search engine. One company, two boxes on the map. The value net does not tell you whether to cooperate. It tells you that the choice exists in more places than you think, and that every partner is also bargaining with you over how the gains are divided.
The value net
Four players around one company. The same player can appear in more than one box.
Origin & context
Brandenburger, then at Harvard Business School, and Nalebuff, of the Yale School of Management, introduced the Value Net in "The Right Game: Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy" in the July-August 1995 issue of the Harvard Business Review, and set it out in full in their book Co-opetition (Currency/Doubleday, 1996). They drew on game theory to argue that "business is not about winning and losing" and that "Companies can succeed spectacularly without requiring others to fail." The 1995 article calls competitors "substitutors", because, the authors wrote, "If you call a player a competitor, you tend to focus on competing rather than on finding opportunities for cooperation."
Builds on: Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff (1995), The Right Game: Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy, Harvard Business Review (July-August 1995); Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff (1996), Co-opetition (Currency/Doubleday); Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff (2021), The Rules of Co-opetition, Harvard Business Review (January-February 2021).
Coopetition and the Value Net in action
Google and Apple
The rival Google paid $20 billion
In 2005 Google bought Android, a small startup, and made an unusual choice: it gave the operating system away to any phone maker that wanted it. The goal was never to sell software. It was to make sure that whatever phone the world bought, Google Search sat on the home screen and Google's ads rode along.
It worked on its own terms. Android came to run roughly 72% of the world's mobile devices, against about 28% for Apple's iOS. Apple was the company Google set out to beat.
And yet Google was also paying Apple. In 2022 Google paid Apple about $20 billion to be the default search engine in Safari, roughly 36% of the search advertising revenue Google earned through Safari searches. On a value net of Google's search business, Apple sits in two boxes: a competitor for the phone, and the supplier of a gate to customers that Google paid to keep open.
Creating the market and dividing it were different games. In 2024 Apple's App Store took in roughly $103.4 billion in gross consumer spending, against about $46.7 billion for Google Play, although Android ran far more devices.
In August 2024 a US court ruled that Google's default-search agreements with Apple, Samsung and other device makers were how Google unlawfully maintained its search monopoly. The cooperation that paid both companies became the center of the case against one of them.
Read the full story: Android, iOS and the $20 billion check →
ASML, Intel, TSMC and Samsung
Three rivals bought their supplier together
Intel, TSMC and Samsung all depend on the machines of one toolmaker, ASML, and they are rivals in their own right. TSMC and Samsung compete to make chips for other companies: Nvidia built one generation of its graphics chips at Samsung and moved the next, launched in 2022, back to TSMC. In the summer of 2012 ASML did something a lithography company is not supposed to do: it sold pieces of itself to its own customers.
Over seven weeks, the three rivals wired in money for equity. Together they bought 23% of ASML for EUR 3.85 billion and completed the program's research funding target of EUR 1.38 billion. Samsung, the last to join, on August 27, 2012, committed EUR 276 million of research funding and EUR 503 million for a 3% stake.
In value net terms, three competitors cooperated as customers to fund the supplier they all needed. Once they were co-owners, a second source of the same machines stopped looking like a sensible hedge.
As of 2024 ASML held 100% of the market for EUV lithography machines, the technology the co-investment funded.
Read the full story: how ASML made its customers co-owners →
American Airlines and United Air Lines
Rivals for passengers, partners for planes
The authors' own example. American and United fight for the same passengers on the same routes. On the value net, each is the other's competitor.
But when they buy new planes, the relationship flips. "Boeing can recoup the cost of a new plane design only if enough airlines buy it," the authors wrote. "Since each airline effectively subsidizes the other's purchase of planes, the two are complementors in this instance."
The same pair of companies sits in two boxes at once, which is the point of drawing the net for each decision rather than labeling each company once.
Using it in the room
Use it before any deal with a company you also compete with, before a move that depends on partners, and whenever a rival becomes a customer or a supplier becomes a rival. It fits early in a strategy review, alongside the five forces, while the options are still open.
Questions to ask
- ?Who makes our product worth more to a customer, and do we treat them as partners?
- ?Which of our rivals also helps us, and where?
- ?Which of our partners is also bargaining against us, and over what?
- ?What could we create with a competitor that neither of us can create alone?
- ?If we left this game, what would each player lose, and if they left, what would we lose?
The 30-minute version
Five minutes to name the decision. Ten minutes to fill the four boxes. Five minutes to mark every company that belongs in two. Ten minutes on the two or three dual-role companies: where you create value together and where you divide it. End with one move to make and one thing you will not share.
Core Components
Customers
The players who buy from the company. They cooperate with it to create value and bargain with it to divide that value.
Example
For Google's search business, the advertisers who pay to reach people searching.
Suppliers
The players the company buys from: materials, labor, components, and access to customers. The same mix of cooperation and bargaining applies.
Example
For a chipmaker, the company that sells it the machines it needs to make chips.
Competitors (the 1995 article's substitutors)
Players whose product makes yours worth less to a customer, or who bid for the same supplies. The authors' less obvious point: you can compete for supplies with a company in a different industry.
Example
The 1995 article notes that Coca-Cola and Tyson Foods compete as buyers of carbon dioxide: Tyson uses it to freeze chickens, Coke to carbonate colas.
Complementors
Players whose product makes yours worth more. "A complementor is the opposite of a competitor," the authors wrote. "It is someone who makes your products and services more rather than less valuable."
Example
Faster chips make people willing to pay for more powerful software, and more powerful software makes them willing to pay for faster chips.
Two roles at once
The point most readers miss. "It's possible for the same player to occupy more than one role simultaneously," the 1995 article says. Draw each player in every box it occupies, then decide where to cooperate and where to compete.
Example
American and United compete for passengers and are complementors as buyers of new Boeing planes.
In the 1995 article, Coca-Cola and Tyson Foods turn up as competitors: not for customers but as buyers of carbon dioxide, which Tyson uses to freeze chickens and Coke uses to put the fizz in colas.
When to Use Coopetition and the Value Net
Before a partnership with a company you also compete with
Problem it solves: The team sees either a friend or an enemy and misses that the other company is both.
Real-world application
A software company weighs listing its product in a rival's marketplace and maps where the rival helps it reach customers and where it competes for the same ones.
When a market is too small for anyone
Problem it solves: Rivals spend against each other in a market none of them can grow alone.
Real-world application
Competing makers agree a common standard so customers stop waiting to see which one wins.
When a supplier holds all the power
Problem it solves: Every buyer depends on one supplier, and none can fund an alternative alone.
Real-world application
Three rival chipmakers co-invest in the one toolmaker they all rely on.
Pricing against a complementor
Problem it solves: A partner whose product makes yours worth more is also bargaining for a bigger share of what the pair earns.
Real-world application
A games console maker decides how much to charge the outside studios whose games make its console worth buying.
Working with a competitor to grow the market is one thing; deals that keep rivals out are another. In August 2024 a US court ruled that Google's default-search payments to Apple, Samsung and others were how Google unlawfully maintained its search monopoly. Put counsel in the room before any agreement with a competitor.
How to Apply Coopetition and the Value Net: Step by Step
Before you start
- →One decision to map, not the whole company
- →People who know your customers, suppliers, partners and rivals
- →A view of how the money flows between them
Name the decision
Pick the move the map is for: a partnership, a launch, a price, an investment. The net changes with the decision.
Tips
- ✓Write the decision as a question with a yes or no answer
Common mistakes
- ✗Drawing one net for the whole company and filing it
Fill the four boxes
List your customers and suppliers, then the competitors who make your product worth less and the complementors who make it worth more.
Tips
- ✓Include competitors for supplies, not only for customers
Common mistakes
- ✗Leaving the complementor box empty because nobody owns that relationship
Put every player in every box it occupies
Draw a company twice if it plays two roles, and connect the two positions. These are the relationships that need the most thought.
Tips
- ✓Ask of each rival: does it ever make our product worth more?
Common mistakes
- ✗Assigning each company one label and stopping there
Find where value is created together
For each pair, ask what the two of you can create that neither can alone: a bigger market, a shared standard, a cheaper input.
Tips
- ✓Look first at the complementors and at rivals who share a supplier
Common mistakes
- ✗Assuming a rival's gain must be your loss
Find where it is divided
For the same pairs, ask how the gains will be split and who would be missed more if they left. That sets each side's bargaining power.
Tips
- ✓Estimate added value for both sides before you negotiate
Common mistakes
- ✗Treating a complementor as a friend who will not bargain
Choose the move and its guardrails
Decide where to cooperate, where to compete, and what would make you change. Check any agreement with a competitor with counsel.
Tips
- ✓Write down what you will not share with a partner who is also a rival
Common mistakes
- ✗Signing a cooperation deal with no exit and no limits on information
Showing the result
One slide: the value net for the decision, with the two or three companies that play more than one role drawn in both boxes and joined by a line. Beside each, one line on what you create together and one on what you are bargaining over.
On the slide
- ✓The decision the map is for
- ✓Every company that appears twice, connected
- ✓For each, the shared gain and the point of conflict
Left off
- ✕Long lists of minor customers and suppliers
- ✕Game theory notation
- ✕Any confidential term of a partner's deal
Value & Outcomes
Primary benefit
It shows the places where a rival can help you and a partner can hurt you, before you commit to a deal.
Additional benefits
- ✓Adds complementors to an analysis that otherwise sees only competition
- ✓Shows where a market can be grown before it is divided
- ✓Makes bargaining power explicit by asking who would be missed more
What you'll learn
- →How to draw the four players around one decision
- →How to spot a company playing two roles
- →How to separate creating value from dividing it
Typical outcomes
Best Practices
📋 Preparation
- •Pick one decision before you draw
- •Bring people who deal with partners and suppliers, not only strategy staff
- •Gather rough figures for the money flowing to and from each player
🚀 Execution
- •Fill all four boxes, including competitors for supplies
- •Draw every player in every box it occupies
- •Ask separately where value is created and where it is divided
🔄 Follow-Up
- •Redraw the net when a partner enters your market or a rival becomes a customer
- •Review any agreement with a competitor with counsel
- •Track what each partnership earns you against what it earns them
💎 Pro Tips
- •The complementor box is usually the emptiest and the most valuable
- •A rival that pays you is still a rival; decide what you will not share
- •If no company appears twice on your map, look harder
The authors' companion idea is added value: "total value created with you in the game, minus total value created without you in the game." Before you bargain with a partner, estimate it for both of you. The one who would be missed more holds the stronger hand.
Limitations & Pitfalls
It maps relationships but does not price them. A contemporary review of the book said the authors "never really make clear what distinguishes game theory from good business sense."
Mitigation: Put rough figures on each relationship and estimate each side's added value before you decide
Cooperation with competitors can cross a legal line, as Google's default-search deals did in a 2024 US ruling.
Mitigation: Involve counsel early and keep cooperation to what grows the market, not what keeps rivals out
A partner that is also a rival learns from you, and the balance between you can shift.
Mitigation: Decide in advance what you will not share, and redraw the net when the other side's role changes
The map is a snapshot. Players change boxes as markets move.
Mitigation: Draw it for each major decision rather than once a year
What comes before and after
Run first
Shows the pressures on the industry's profit; the value net then asks which of those players could also help.
The term the value net added to strategy, defined with examples.
Run next
Work through how each player will respond to your move once you know who they are.
If the map shows complementors carrying your value, design the business around them.
Where this comes fromAdam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff introduced this (1995).
Sources & further reading
- Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff (1995). The Right Game: Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review (July-August 1995).The Value Net, its four players, substitutors and complementors, the airline, carbon dioxide and hardware-software examples, and PARTS.
- Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff (1996). Co-opetition. Currency/Doubleday.
- Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff (1997). The Added-Value Theory of Business. strategy+business (October 1, 1997).Complementors as the opposite of competitors; added value; creating value is cooperative, capturing it competitive.
- Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff (2021). The Rules of Co-opetition. Harvard Business Review (January-February 2021).
- Barbara Presley Noble (1996). "Co-opetition" by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff (review). strategy+business (July 1, 1996).
- ProMarket (2025). How Google Revenue-Sharing Payments Contribute to Apple's Monopoly Power (citing the trial record in United States v. Google LLC). ProMarket (November 10, 2025).About $20 billion paid to Apple in 2022, roughly 36% of Google's Safari search advertising revenue.
- Search Engine Land (2026). DOJ and states appeal Google search antitrust remedies ruling. Search Engine Land (February 4, 2026).The August 2024 ruling on Google's default search agreements.
- Wikipedia (2025). Usage share of operating systems. Wikipedia (citing StatCounter).Android about 72% and iOS about 28% of mobile devices.
- HubiFi (2025). Google Play Store Revenue 2025: The Complete Guide. HubiFi (October 1, 2025).App Store about $103.4 billion and Google Play about $46.7 billion in 2024.
- ASML Holding NV (2012). Form 6-K, Exhibit 99.1: Samsung joins Customer Co-Investment Program. SEC EDGAR (August 27, 2012).23% for EUR 3.85 billion; research funding target EUR 1.38 billion; Samsung's EUR 276 million and EUR 503 million for 3%.
- 36Kr (Morgan Stanley data) (2025). Can Canon Aid Japan's Semiconductor Equipment Industry?. 36Kr (August 25, 2025).ASML's 100% share of EUV as of 2024.
More Management Frameworks
Other frameworks in the Stratrix library.
7 Powers
7 Powers names the seven ways a business can earn more than its rivals for years, not quarters. Its test is strict: an advantage counts only when it pays and when something stops rivals from copying it. A great product that a rival can match is not a power.
Strategic AnalysisScenario Planning
Scenario planning tests a strategy against three or four plausible futures instead of one forecast. It does not predict which future arrives. Its use is to find the bet a plan cannot afford to lose, while there is still time to hedge it.
Strategic AnalysisActivity System Mapping
An activity system map draws a strategy as the activities that carry it and the lines where one supports another. Michael Porter's point: a rival can copy one activity but rarely the whole system. The same lines show what else moves when you change one yourself.
Strategic AnalysisVRIO Framework
VRIO tests whether a company's resources give it a lasting edge: are they valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and is the company organized to use them? The part a rival cannot copy is rarely the product. It is what has piled up around it.
Strategic AnalysisSWOT Analysis
A strategic planning framework that evaluates an organization's internal Strengths and Weaknesses alongside external Opportunities and Threats to inform decision-making and strategy formulation.
Strategic AnalysisPESTEL Analysis
A macro-environmental scanning framework that examines Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors to understand external forces shaping business conditions.
Tools to try
- Ansoff move finderFramework: Ansoff Matrix
- Business model canvas builderFramework: Business Model Canvas
- Change readiness checkFramework: Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
- Five Forces scorerFramework: Porter's Five Forces
- SWOT builderFramework: SWOT Analysis
- SMART goal builderFramework: SMART Goals
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