Toulouse Business School, Barcelona

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Monday 26 January 2015

Negotiation vs bargaining

Negotiation vs Bargaining

the Knight v Excalibur Engines Exercise (Chloé, Linna, Yvette & Charlotte)

Hi everyone!





As we reflected on this exercise, we can conclude that all 4 of us were happy with the result.
The key to this "small success" was TIME.
Don't try to rush through it but take your time.
Before we started the negotiation Chloé & I made op a little scheme of how we were planning to take the lead in the negotiation without really performing as if we were taking the lead.
Some bullet points were:

*welcome them friendly and point out why we were having this meeting.
* We said nothing & listened + make them talk more by asking questions
* made a summary of what they proposed together with the interlocutors
* Asked them for 5 minutes break so we could discuss how we were going to continue our strategy
* We asked them to be clearer and said nothing + said nothing until felt a bit uncomfortable
* As we understood that they were aiming for a long term relationship we mentioned the opportunity they would get by working together with us. Their "golden ticket"to work and be labelled by a big company.
* We said that we wanted a perfect quality and negotiated on the fact that they would take back unused and defective goods.
* As we found an agreement on the fact that we would order 10 000 pieces instead of 8000 but with the promise that they would take back the unused+ detective goods without any costs.  (By doing this we weren't taking any risk of poor quality or unfinished goods)
* Our following step was to discuss the delivery time. The interlocutors suggested a one week delivery time which we obviously accepted (We could decrease our manufacturing time and made sure we could deliver high quality products within 60 days)
* Before our negotiation started Chloé and I decided that we wouldn't aim for the lowest price but instead not paying for the fees, but still have all the benefits of the fees.
* We summarized together with Linna & Yvette what we agreed on already
*started negotiating more directly and on a higher level (+ still pointed out their opportunity in the future)
* reached a win-win agreement


We can conclude that we gained more or less their trust and reached our goal of delivering high quality products in a shorter period of time.


Hope it helps!


Chloé & Charlotte

Reflection on Knight v Excalibur Engines Exercise

Reflection on Knight v Excalibur Engines Exercise:

Lucas and myself were on the Knight team and Julian and Adrian and the Excalibur team.
During our negotiation, we came to several conclusions about our negotiation:

-First of all, we were bargaining much more then we were actually negotiating. The first thing that was proposed was a price to settle on instead of establishing what each of us wanted.


-We were not truly listening to what the opposite team was saying: They proposed a price which we could have been interested in but we went on to proposing something else immediately without considering what they said.

-We did not try to "open" the possibilities enough. We should have reconsidered the terms of the contract and bend them in different ways to our advantage. We were too focalised on the price and not how the conditions could be changed.

-In the end, one of the members was not in accordance with the closing that we came to agree on. It was probably due to a lack of good listening and clear communication, considering the needs and wants of each team.

This exercise was interesting in the way that it made us realise what we were truly lacking in our negotiation and how to change it. Mainly: 

-Negotiating and not bargaining
-Listening to the opposite team and what they want, and not just hearing.
-Opening the possibilities, changing the terms and conditions, not limiting ourselves to the price.
-Communicating our needs clearly in order to close the discussion in the most effective way. 
-Let the opposite team speak more to reveal more information.