It is unfair maybe, unjust perhaps, but inevitable.

If you are in a winning team you catch some of glory however small you own role has been. If you are in a losing team you are tarred with losers’ brush, no matter how excellent your own performance has been.

Those outside confines of team inevitably see wider picture and not details. They inevitably judge each member of a team to some degree based on their perception of whole group.

And for you as an individual, however good you are, if you are in a losing team this can be bad news.

Bad news if person making judgement is your boss.

Bad news if person making judgement is head of another department in which you would like to work.

Bad news when time comes to select people for promotion.

Bad news when bonuses are decided.

Whether they're partners, investors, employees or community as a whole, enhancing daily business relations can unlock many great opportunities for a company, especially in terms of accelerating growth, building value, entering new markets and pooling expertise.

It's as simple as saying "Two heads are better than one", and as clichéd as this sounds, it's a strategy applied to business every day- and it works. The strategic alliance is a trend that's here to stay. Many businesses have benefited from successful alliances. They can give companies a major competitive edge, allowing them to provide more for clients and customers than they would have been able to do by themselves. Trying to create what your company lacks is costly, time consuming and usually doomed to failure. Buying through mergers and acquisitions is expensive and complicated. Alliances are cheap and secure way to go: no dilution, no risky leveraging of balance sheet. If partnership doesn't work, disband it. Partnering is becoming popular among some of biggest and most profitable companies in world. A study showed more than 20 percent of revenue generated from top 2,000 U.S. and European companies comes from alliances: HP/Cannon, Intel/Microsoft, Yahoo!/SBC, PepsiCo/Starbucks, Sony/Ericsson and Cisco/IBM are some well-known successful alliances.

The most enormously successful partnerships are those built from trust, respect, and mutual understanding. Billionaire investor, Warren Buffett is renowned for his stock market prowess, as well as his strategy of betting on long-term growth of successful companies like American Express and Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett's ingenious ability to understand stock markets made him a cult figure, but it was also his patience that played a big part in his rise to top. His unwavering faith in his companies allowed him to see beyond short-term failures and to triumph in long-term. He is famous for relationships he developed during course of his life. His companionship and investment with Katharine Graham of Washington Post is one of most famous business alliances of all time. He met Graham in 1970s as an investor in The Washington Post Company, her family's newspaper company, where she became first female Fortune 500 CEO. The relationship became one of deep personal reverence. Graham considered him her closest friend and relied on him for personal as well as business advice. Buffett made a fortune from his investment in Post. Today, newspaper publishing, television broadcasting, cable television systems, and magazine publishing have been added to Washington Post Company's numerous holdings. Buffet's investment company's initial $10 million investment in media empire is now worth $205 million. Buffett still sits on Board of Directors at Washington Post and is also advisor to Graham's successor, her son, Donald E. Graham.