When the negotiation team gets mediocre deal results, their bosses blame the economy, or the other company, or the weather for bad results. The real problem is that the negotiation team did not take the negotiation process seriously enough to systematically plan for...
Imagine a mid-level manger in the global commodities group got an email from the operations manager from a plant that read something like this. “Bob, I called ABC supplier to see where our XYZ parts are, and they told me that we’ll get them in 3 weeks. They said the...
Federal Government Negotiates and Gets Value Today, Rocky Flats is a National Wildlife Refuge. It was established in 2007, and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The 5,237-acre refuge was once a nuclear weapon depot, a legacy of the cold war. Prior to...
A client and I are drafting a gainshare arrangement for a complex service delivery contract. Neither my client (procurement) nor the service supplier have used a gainshare arrangement in their 26-year relationship. Yet, my client’s current economic outlook demands...
Every customer wants value, and every supplier says that they provide value. But, when it comes time to negotiate the contract it’s all PRICE, PRICE and more about PRICE. So, how do you break out of the price only conversation and really negotiate value? Negotiators...
reMy client was preparing to make a counteroffer to a vendor asking them to reduce their price, when an announcement to close a division of my client’s organization was made public. The closure impacts the vendor’s relationship with the organization, but doesn’t...