Negotiation is a vital element that has highly influenced how agreements are made. For instance, my adoption of negotiations techniques has enhanced my capabilities in decision-making. Further, negotiation skills have actively been instrumental in enabling the success of my business as a vendor. Being prone to price-related victimization, especially from renowned businesses and individuals, I have been forced to continuously up my game to overcome uncertainties. Vending as a business has highly improved my general income. As a result, I have to utilize all the resources at my disposal to fight for me in the negotiation, ensuring a favorable outcome. Having engaged in numerous negotiations, I have observed that my reservation point has been vital in stimulating desirable outcomes. This paper will mainly focus on testing my argument towards negotiation to ensure that I gain the necessary outcome, whose eventuality will imply winning the desirable offer to promote my business and relationship with customers.
As a vendor, I have extensively involved myself in supplying valuable products and services to business partners. Under normal circumstances, the agreement binding our operations has been profitable and ensured business continuity (Isaksson, 2021). However, several instances have existed in which the formulated agreements have downplayed my success within the business. Such instances have greatly attracted the successive steps and measures to materialize my needs through negotiations. I have had to engage in limitless negotiations, which tend to be unending to effectively smoothen the prices, particularly on the products and services I offer. Currently, increased competition and the existence of numerous competitors dealing with similar products have proved to be a threat to our businesses. Therefore, competition-driven negotiation has increasingly become part of my lifestyle in the business setup. Additionally, supplier negotiations have been of crucial importance towards corporate efficiency. My engagement in supplier-related negotiation has effectively mainstreamed the profitable relationship between my clients and me.
Most notably, the negotiation I had was in December last year when I engaged in a negotiation that compromised the city vendors and the probable clients for whom we supply our products and services. The City mayor planned the negotiation following the operation strike and boycott that the vendors in town staged. Arguably, the boycott to supply products and services resulting from the city manufacturers importing the cheaply available products from the neighboring country at the expense of the city vendors. Before the negotiation, we staged a massive demonstration in which I took the lead as I decided to fight for what was right. We mobilized entire vendors from all the respective city locations and selected a representative from each category based on the products dealt with. I managed to mobilize 30 vendors who were actively dealing with the supply of products and services of different caliber to the manufacturers who were our business partners. Following inadequacy that resulted from the boycott, the Mayor was notified, who then contacted all the manufacturers and their representatives to ascertain the extent of the matter. After that, the mayor organized a representative meeting scheduled to be held at the city square next to his office. The meeting encompassed representation from both the side of vendors and manufacturers who have been in business for over a decade.
The negotiation was one of its kind. It was largely anticipated by the whole town to be having a desirable solution. The vendors on one side were agitated by the manufacturer’s decision to import the products. While the manufacturers were highly shaken by the total boycott that affected their supply chain as the vendors failed to supply even the most critical products. Indeed, this was a negotiation of its own it comprised up to 50 representatives from both sides and a unique team of 10 who were in charge of coordinating the negotiation. Each party had its grievances with sufficient facts to validate the same well-articulated.
The commencement of the negotiation was marked by my presentation, which was entirely instrumental for the whole event. Firstly, I thanked the present members, and most importantly, I acknowledged the city’s Mayor’s effort, who dedicated his time to finding a solution to the ongoing commotion. Secondly, I appreciated the move from the business partners, the counterparty, in the negotiation. Finally, I embraced the relentless effort of my fellow vendors, who made it to the meeting for the solution. During the introduction, I adopted a distributive bargaining form of negotiations to expedite our needs as vendors.
During the early stage of negotiations, I was given a chance to express my desires as a vendor in representing the entire group. This was followed by a rapid and extreme heated opening offer from the vendors’ side. For instance, the vendors opening offer targeted getting the best price, such was met with a counterintuitive approach that purported to set extreme high price goals to attain the most profitable deals and establish a strong supplier relationship. They were a vendor we were faced with extreme uncertainties regarding our products and services. Arguably, external imports would imply losing a voluminous amount of products as only a few would be considered; after all, such highly implied unimaginable losses in profitability. I thought to reject the measure that manufacturers had opted for; we were deprived of the ability to engage in the business profitably by considering direct imports. Their actions also jeopardized the existing relationship, which flourished over the past few years. As a result, the fundamental objectives of the vendors across the negotiation were first to abolish external importations and reconsider back imports from vendors.
I seconded the negotiation by reiterating our next reservation point about the development of a transparent relationship, which could help predict future trends hence minimizing supply chain disruptions. Being victims of the circumstances of the shaky relationship, I was keen to air out this element which was to adhere strictly and without further ado. Having been in business for a reasonable time, we had already gained adequate links. Therefore, I insisted on the strengthening of more transparent ties. The evident lack of transparency in the course of business operations severed the relationship between vendors and the respective partners.
While I was giving the first and second offers, I was shortly interrupted by the manufacturers. As part of their reservation point, they stated that we should increase efficiency and consistency in delivering our products within the stipulated time limits. As part of their reservation, I acknowledged their viewpoint; however, I differed with them by stating that the course of delivery delays was majorly attributed to the failure of the manufacturers to make timely payments. For instance, the vendors were majorly faced with consignment delivery challenges, especially on invoice settlement delays.
Furthermore, prices stood out to be a significant factor that hindered the continuity of the business. I figured out that it was the act of our prices that resulted in manufacturing deviating to cheaper commodities and outsourcing services externally. Also, I learned that the point of the argument was to smoothen the prices to achieve the best prices, which would foster profitability and build a long-term relationship that would enhance future shared opportunities. The regulators allowed me to set my first offer concerning the prices. Having been in several previous consultative meetings, we had already planned on the acceptable offers per-unit prices of our products and services. Following q series of negotiations, I set my offer on a relatively higher than anticipated to avoid the instance of ZOPA being attained at a relatively lower and unfavorable position. In this case, I made my first offer at three times the previous prices. Such was motivated by the crude actions of the manufacturers who severed the business relationship for their self-interest. However, we had agreed to A BATNA of not less than two times the previous prices per unit of our products and services. Therefore, the stipulated BATNA was slightly favorable in the face of vendors who were negatively impacted selfish acts of the counterparty, which intentionally ignored our products. Considering the losses we had already encountered due to deviation of products and services attainment, I vowed that first, the counterparty was to pay for the already incurred losses before the negotiation.
As I made my offer, the counterparty was silent entirely, but upon hearing my BATNA, their representative stood up and agreed to propose their ZOPA at 2.5 times the previous prices. Their ZOPA was met with welcoming responses from my party. As our previous intent had the giveaway to be two times, I acknowledged that 2.5 was already higher than our situated point of agreement. As part of our first negotiable offer, we came to a desirable conclusion on prices. Agreement on the price was stimulated by my tactical strategies, which manifested across the negotiation process. We maintained a high degree of confidentiality on our offers to prevent the occurrence of tactical mistakes. Considerably, the cost of tactical mistake was inevitable and could not be allowed to occur under any circumstances.
Revealing our terms and conditions to the counterparty would be termed a degrading action that would have negatively impacted our negotiation power. I teamed up with my members and prepared then of the same before the commencing of the negotiation such was highly pivotal for the success of the first set of negotiable instruments. Therefore, we closed our negotiation at a ZOPA that both members highly accepted. I observed that leniency, which resulted from the counterparty manufacturers, was mainly associated with their actions, which directly impacted our relationship. They had to agree as a way to clean up the mess and pain they had inflicted on the vendors who counted losses and spoilage. Across the negotiation, I realized that the counterparty had not planned their ZOPA due to the pain they incurred due to the boycott from the vendor’s side. They were highly susceptible to any decision that the vendors passed. Due to ineffective planning, they were adversely affected and hence failed to stage a counteroffer that would have materialized their needs. Therefore, they had to accept the offer under the least minimum to avoid further scarcity attributed to the continuing boycotts.
The second offer came from the side of the counterparty; their point of argument was on the delivery system we had adopted as vendors. The counterparty argued that we were not fully adhering to the products and services delivery as per our previous agreement. While noting the challenges they faced from our side, I found out their underlying needs were linked to the payment mechanisms they adopted. The disruption in the supply chain was majorly attributed to delays in settlement and payments remittance from the manufacturer’s side. In light of this, I welcomed the contributive bargaining approach from my fellow vendors.
Upon a series of negotiations and coordination, we came up with an accommodative conclusion. We agreed to manage concession by effectively taking in the view of the counterparty as a giveaway. We decided to give away as much as we could for our relationship, having learned that they had accommodated our offer on prices. In this, I reiterated that in the event of delivery, the vendors would optimize service and products quality and organize the delivery within the set time limit. At the same time, the counterparty must also adhere to the payment as per the agreed time without fail. We gave away what we could afford for the sake of the negotiation and made it a success hence a win-win situation (Thompson, 2020). Similarly, given this, I agreed that supply chain management was instrumental, considering the sophistication that was attributed to it. Hence, both parties welcomed members’ leniency to ensure that desirable outcome and profitability from both sides was attained. Under this, the negotiation saw that the counterparty should agree on payment remittance to ensure a smooth supply of the products and services accordingly.
Finally, the negotiation was heated with agitation arising from both parties, which had different interests. However, each party conceded its mistake and acknowledged the need to adjust for continued operations. Further, the conversations welcomed creative tensions within the negotiation. For example, as a function of a price increase, the supplier acknowledged that they would improve the quality and delivery system. The negotiation embraced innovative approaches, which pointed out the underlying challenges of both the vendors and manufacturers in the business. Through the adoption of innovation, effective measures were embraced that played an instrumental role in enhancing the continuity of the business. For example, I agreed to develop a check-in system to ensure and fast rack the services and products from vendors with a follow-up cycle until the payments are remitted. Such was instrumental in ensuring rightful products and services and equitable payments. The counterparty follows the same way to adhere to their roles to ensure effective operations.
Reference
Berkel, G. (2020). Learning to Negotiate. Cambridge University Press. Web.
Isaksson, R. (2021). Excellence for sustainability–maintaining the license to operate. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 32(5-6), 489-500. Web.
Thompson, L. (2020). Win-Win Negotiation in a Global Economy. In New leadership in strategy and communication (pp. 27-35). Springer, Cham. Web.