Alliances are nowadays a key pillar for company's strategy, allowing them to create strategic advantages over competitors. This study aims to identify mechanisms used by three large multinational companies (Cisco, Philips and Eli Lilly) - leaders in their respective large industries- to develop their alliance capabilities as a key competitive tool. Alliance capability development allows them to get successfully involved in a higher number of alliances and it is being used by these companies to become more agile and competitive in the market. This study attempts to infer a set of "Best Practices" on alliance management based on these three company practices.