Network Advantage — Anatolia Sensörik's Alliance Portfolio

A four-round, advanced corporate-strategy simulation set inside Anatolia Sensörik A.Ş., an Istanbul-based automotive-sensor maker ($240M revenue, 14% EBIT) that owns no dominant patent and no platform of its own, yet quietly sits between two rival mapping firms and three Tier-1 integrators in a fast-consolidating mobility ecosystem. On 5 May 2026 a global Tier-1 announces an exclusive autonomous-driving bloc; the blocs are about to crystallise into two or three closed camps and the high-value broker positions are being filled by rivals. The board, drawing on a formal performance-feedback review (design-win rate has fallen from 31% to 22%, below the 28% aspiration), has ruled that the firm is below aspiration and must search aggressively rather than defend the status quo. Playing the Chief Strategy Officer with one quarter, a $28M alliance-investment budget and a hard engineering-attention cap, you (1) diagnose the network — read the structural holes, rank candidate partners by centrality contribution and conflict risk, and accept the performance-feedback signal that licenses aggressive search; (2) build a focused alliance portfolio of three or four positions, set depth and exclusivity, and resolve the GeoNorth–AtlasMap conflicting tie rather than straddling it; (3) govern the brokerage under pressure — answer an exclusivity ultimatum, defend the broker position against disintermediation with real lock-in instead of broadcasting every connection, and take an innovation tie without leaking your roadmap; and (4) appropriate the value and defend the position after a rival's counter-move, installing contracts, embedded standards and switching costs so the ~$60M of joint value the portfolio creates is actually captured by Anatolia, then set the feedback rule for the next cycle. The math rewards Gözübüyük's centrality-rents logic — position and portfolio shape over partner count — and measurably punishes the five classic errors: confusing connectedness with centrality, straddling the conflicting tie, over-broadcasting brokerage, creating value without appropriating it, and defending the status quo under shortfall. Final KPIs track Network Centrality, Rent Appropriation, Partner Trust and the $28M budget committed.