Business Development Report: Pitching and Negotiation Skills

This report analyzes pitching and negotiation skills within the context of Waitrose & Partners, a UK-based supermarket chain. It begins by defining negotiation, identifying key stakeholders, and outlining the negotiation process, including preparation, information exchange, bargaining, conclusion, and execution. The report then examines Request for Proposal (RFP) processes, relevant documentation, and contract management strategies, with a specific focus on Waitrose. It further explores the development of effective pitches, evaluates potential outcomes, and recommends post-pitch obligations to manage risk. The report provides a critical evaluation of the negotiation steps, competitive tendering, and pitch outcomes, offering insights into achieving sustainable competitive advantages and successful deal-making.

PITCHING AND
NEGOTIATION
SKILLS

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1: Negotiation and key stakeholders during a negotiation process......................................3
P2: Key steps and information required for negotiating and generating deals.......................5
M1: Concise rationale for the negotiation process.................................................................6
D1: Critically evaluate the steps of the negotiation process...................................................7
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P3. RFP process and relevant types of documentation required............................................7
P4. Contractual process and ways to manage and monitor relevant documentation..............9
M2. RFP process within Waitrose........................................................................................11
D1. Critical evaluation of competitive tendering and contracting process..........................12
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................12
P5. Developing an appropriate pitch....................................................................................12
M3. Examination and evaluation of the pitch process.........................................................14
D3. Development of a dynamic and creative pitch..............................................................14
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................14
P6. Assessment of the potential outcomes of a pitch...........................................................14
M4. Recommendation for Waitrose to fulfil its post-pitch obligations................................17
D4. Critical evaluation of pitch and post pitch outcomes to determine risk management...17
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................18
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................19

INTRODUCTION
Negotiation is a process in which two parties makes settlement according to their own
interest and try to achieve more profit. Aim of both the parties is to settle their negotiation to an
acceptable solution so that both the parties gain something from it (Negotiation Skills. 2018). In
this report Waitrose & Partners is taken into consideration. It is a supermarket chain which
mainly specialize in food and headquarters in Berkshire, United kingdom. Negotiation and
information required in the open process will be discussed below. Apart from that RFP and
contractual process will be discussed and how it is managed and monitored to make the best
utilization of it will be explained. Pitch will be made to attain a sustainable competitive
advantage. After that outcome of the pitch and negotiation will be scrutinized. The project
discusses the reasons behind negotiation and the process of stakeholders commences. Along with
this, potential outcomes of a pitching are also included under this report.
TASK 1
P1: Negotiation and key stakeholders during a negotiation process
Negotiation is an open process in which stakeholder try to settle down their differences to
gain the most out of negotiation. There should be at least two parties while making the
negotiation. The aim of Negotiation is to compromise the agreement while avoiding any conflict
between the parties. However, their should be a fair decision taken by both the parties from the
mutual assent (Chang, Benamraoui and Rieple, 2014). The key factors while conducting a
negotiation is attitude towards one another, knowledge related to the topic and last but not the
least interpersonal skills which includes communications, rapport building assertiveness etc.
Waitrose have to face negotiation in daily life as they have to deal with suppliers and distributors
while selling their products into the supermarket other than that they have to negotiate with their
employees while fixing their salary. The benefits of negotiation for the company is discussed
below,
 It reduce the cost price of the product in which Waitrose is buying thus increase in
profitability of the company.
 Waitrose can bring new products hence increasing their footfalls in the market.
 Negotiation can enhance the relationships between the parties.

Why does negotiation occur:
Negotiation occurs in every business as it plays an important role in increasing the
profitability of the company. It happen when the parties are not deciding their outcomes and
confuse between the different result that arises from a situation (Cooke and Zaby, 2015). There
are three different types of outcome that comes from the negotiation which are describe below,
 Win-win situations: In this, both the parties while negotiating gain the equal amount of
benefits.
 Win-lose situations: In this situation, one party gain more benefits as compare to other
party while negotiating.
 Lose-lose situations: When both the parties have to deal as bounded by the laws thus
ending up in loosing the benefits of the deal.
In the context of Waitrose negotiation factors in described below,
 Negotiation happens in Waitrose as they have to fix their price and quantity of the
product with suppliers and distributors so to buy the product in lesser price thus increase
in profit for the firm.
 The company's main focus is to provide new products of different companies to the
customer. Waitrose have to deal with companies so that they can sell their products
through their chain.
 Negotiation occurs at the time renewing the deals with companies who are providing
their products to sell in the Waitrose chain.
Key stakeholder in the negotiation process
Negotiation is done by the individual who has better knowledge about the product which
they are dealing and have good interpersonal skills so to grab the most profitable deal for the
company (Coppens and et. al., 2014). Key stakeholder which takes parts in negotiation process is Waitrose top executive: They are responsible to communicate plans and policies
formulated by them to the employees in order to make easy for them to understand their
roles and responsibilities. Shareholder representative: They are the owners of company who is responsible to
provide externally support to the organisation by investing huge amount in company with
a hope of getting maximum return on investment.

 Mediator: It is middlemen which passes the information of employees to the top
authority as well as provide orders or instructions of Top authorities to the subordinates.
 The other party: It includes government which has power to control over existence of
company by directing them to implement laws and legislation acts made by them.
P2: Key steps and information required for negotiating and generating deals
Negotiation is a long and open process in which to get the desirable outcomes, company
should follow a structured approach through which the outcome would be achieved by reducing
the chances of conflict (Fletcher, 2018). All the steps of negotiation process is discussed below
with functional example,
Preparation and planning: This is the first step of negotiation stage in which Waitrose
should prepare their pitch of negotiation by making a report on the topic. Company should
analyse the data which they have gather to find out the best deal which can be generated from the
deal. Key elements which should be done by the Waitrose before going for a negotiation is as
follows,
 Information about the other party which includes their products, their financial status,
their strategies, their strengths and weakness etc.
 Which type of outcome do the company wants i.e., win-win situations, win-lose
situations etc.
 Knowledge about the topic of discussion
 Pitch for the deal
 Objectives of the negotiation deal etc
Information exchange: In this stage both the parties try to influence other thinking by
providing them statistic and report made by them in the first stage. The tone of negotiation is set
in the stage. All the possible outcomes will be discussed in this. Few factors which are assessed
by both the parties is trustworthiness, credibility etc (Gbadegeshin, 2018). The information
shared in this stage should be genuine as disseminating of wrong information will affect the
Waitrose goodwill in a negative way.
Bargain: Bargaining refers to negotiating of conditions of the deals. Both the parties try
to attain their purpose of the deal and how parties can achieve the win-lose outcomes or win-win
outcomes. Waitrose should be very crystal clear about their objectives as what they want to
achieve from this negotiation. The knowledge and the interpersonal skills are test in the step.

Waitrose stakeholder work is to bargain the deal according to their personal interest and if they
feel that the deal will affect the company in a negative way then they should try to modify the
deal or cancel the trade according to their interest.
Conclude: In this stage, Waitrose and other party will conclude their presentation by
providing their personal objectives. The summary of the deal and paper work will be done in
this. Waitrose should try to attain the win-win or win-lose outcomes thus helping the company to
achieve the growth.
Execute: This is the last stage of the negotiation stage in which the outcome of the deal is
implement on the real scenario and try to make it a successful deal by making strategies
according to the deal. The key points of the deal should be very clear as the strategies made by
the parties while implement should be made in that only (Vance, Kulturel-Konak and Konak,
2014).
M1: Concise rationale for the negotiation process
Negotiation process is important for every party as it helps them to improve their
profitability over other party. Different type of negotiation information is explained below,
 Waitrose should know every details about financial status of other company and strengths
and weakness about them as it will help them to mould their negotiation accordingly. If
company is already aware competitor strategy then Waitrose can easily tack tackle
situation which would arise in future.
 Waitrose should focus on win win situation as their aim is to attain their business
objectives and it would only achieve while giving the sustainable business performance
which will help them to achieve competitive advantage.
 Waitrose should know all details about the discussion topic and which type of
information requires while having the deal to achieve the win win situations. Pitch of the
deal should be prepared before coming to negotiation. Other than that, objectives of
business and purpose of the deal should be crystal clear.
Detailed steps in negotiation process
Preparation and planning: In this stage, company needs to prepare themselves about
information which could be needed in the negotiation stage. Chances of attaining win loose
situation is less if company is not prepared in first step of negotiation.

Information exchange: Both the parties who are having the negotiation process will
exchange their information. Information includes details about the project and how negotiation
will help both the parties to attain success without affecting each other situations.
Bargain: In this stage, both the parties bargain their share of profit so that win win
situation would attain. Interpersonal skills plays an important part in this stage.
Conclude: Details and profit share of negotiation deal is comes to point where parties are
agrees on the same level. Both the parties still trying to gain profit by giving their last pitching.
Execute: Implementation of deal in the real scenario is started and executives work is to
make the strategies according to the external environment. Impact of the strategies implemented
by the companies should be monitored by the upper management and try to modify it so to
maximize their utilisation of resources.
D1: Critically evaluate the steps of the negotiation process
If proper preparation and planning is done by Waitrose then it would help them to gain
the edge in the first step of negotiation process. If company's has done wrong research then it
would create negative impact over the result of the deal. Waitrose should cross check their
information and prepare for pitching according to that. Information exchange requires trust over
each other and if false information is scatter to the other party then it would create negative
image of the company which can also hamper the deal. Bargaining steps arise conflict between
the parties as both wants to gain more profitability as compare to their competitors. Waitrose
should enhance their interpersonal skills for this step. In conclude step, both the parties should be
on same level while closing down the deals. Waitrose should focus on gaining the winning
situations rather than losing the deal. At last all the strategies which is make according to the
deals should be properly analysed and Waitrose should try make it dynamic so that any external
environment wont affect the performance of the company.
TASK 2
P3. RFP process and relevant types of documentation required
An RFP or Request For Proposal is a documentation or a formal request which is posted
by an organisation to elicit responses from various vendors aiming towards addressing the needs
or problems of the issuer. It plays a prominent role in operations of business organisations.
Potential vendors are allowed to demonstrate solutions along with their unique benefits and

allows issuers to access these offerings from the vendors (Ting‐Toomey, 2017). RFP will be very
important for a firm like Waitrose so that they could enhance their service quality and satisfy
more customers in the UK markets.
The process for RFP is mentioned below:
 Crafting Request For Proposal Document:
The most important step for Waitrose is to craft a document which could inform the potential
vendors about the issues that needs to be addressed. The firm must focus on clarity for better
understanding of the vendors and get appropriate responses. There are few elements that an RFP
document must include, which are:
▪ A detailed overview of Waitrose & Partners including their processes and the
products and services they deal with.
▪ Thorough goals for the project that needs to be addressed.
▪ The target market that would avail the benefits of the project.
▪ The project specifications and major components.
▪ Requirements for the projects along with its guidelines.
▪ Factors essential for vendor bids, for instance, cost breakdown, budget, timeline,
etc.
▪ Information needed in references such as the number and timeline of their clients,
type of contact information required and so forth.
▪ Delivery Instructions including the method in which they are required be
delivered , point of contacts, etc.
▪ Identification of the selection process of the vendors along with the timeline.
 Client Discovery:
For vendors, it is essential that they craft appropriate responses to the client's demands in order to
make their proposal appropriate for acceptance (Sullivan, 2015). Most of the responses are
rejected by the issuers as they fail to address the demands and the problems properly. Thus, it is
required for vendors to respond effectively the problems client wants solutions to.
 Short-listing Vendors:
This step requires Waitrose to critically evaluate the responses and select the most potential
vendors that could adequately address their issues. The proposals are needed to be evaluated
effectively by the company to shortlist the best vendors for the job. This evaluation requires them

to conduct an in-depth comparison of the vendors on the basis of their core strengths and
differentiation factors. Such comparison would help them look past the average vendors and
select the ones with effective competitive edges.
 Follow-Up:
It is one of the most important step of RFP process as Waitrose would now evaluate the
shortlisted vendors to determine the one vendor who could win the bid. To achieve this, the
company must engage itself with the vendors and ask follow-up questions which emphasizes on
the critical elements (Rakin, 2017). It is then required to set the scoring criteria. However, it is
essential that the company be open to the vendors about the existing competition and their
evaluation factors (Moore, 2014).
 Completion of Evaluation:
Waitrose at this stage must be thorough and clear about the offerings made by vendors. A side-
by-side comparison of these vendors according to their scoring process would allow the
company to determine the best choice for their needs. Selection of the most apt vendor must be
done after internally reviewing the scores.
 Contract Awarding:
The final step needs Waitrose to officially select the best vendor and go ahead with the legal
documentation. This step includes giving the results of RFP to legal department, crafting a
detailed Statement of Work (SOW) and reviewing the contract process.
Documentation required for RFP:
RFP itself is a document, requirements of which are mentioned above. However, the
other main type of documentation required is Statement of Work (SOW). It must define the
manner in which Waitrose would work with the vendor. To attain this, performance metrics
along with the review method must be included in the document.
P4. Contractual process and ways to manage and monitor relevant documentation
Contractual management is the procedure undertaken by companies to manage contract
development, its execution along with its analysis (Mejía-Arauz and et. al., 2018). The agenda of
this management is to maximize firm's performance in terms of operations and finance. It also
helps in reduction of financial risks. This process of contractual management generally consumes

a lot of time which develops a need for Waitrose & Partners to develop efficient contractual
management system.
There are various steps in the contractual process that are needed to be considered by
Waitrose to appropriately manage the contractual system of the firm. These steps are as follows:
 Identification of the contract:
The firm should effectively measure the reason for binding up a contract and it must clearly
articulate the reason, needs and ultimate objectives required to be achieved. It must also
determine and seek to mitigate potential risks that could occur during the document's lifetime.
 Contract Authoring:
Waitrose must consult an attorney or In-House Counsel during presence of uncertainties. The
firm must also consider using a pre-drafted template by its legal team. This would ensure the
inclusion of all the necessary terms and clauses along with up-to-date information. The company
must emphasize on detailed proof-reading of the contract to ensure correct use of language,
tenses and punctuations (Maddux, 2016). They could also use automated systems to ease this
process.
 Contract Negotiations:
This is an inevitable step and recurring in nature despite of planning, research and preparation. It
is crucial to be trustworthy and transparent while negotiating the contract. Waitrose must
research the needs of other party each time to simplify the process of conversation and develop a
healthy long-term relationship.
 Approval of Contract:
This stage follows up after negotiation. Contracts at Waitrose must have all the necessary
requirements fulfilled before undergoing audit procedures or getting approval from managers. To
simplify the procedure, the firm must set up approval workflows on a contractual management
platform to save time and efforts of personnels drafting the contract.
 Contract Execution:
For contracts to be effective, it is necessary that both parties agree and easily make it official. If
Waitrose is coming into an agreement with a company which is situated in a different part of the
world, it would be easier for the firm to use electronic signatures to eradicate the delay during
urgencies.
 Revisions and Amendments:

It is very necessary for Waitrose & Partners to continuously revise their contracts and make
necessary amendments whenever required. Systems like contract lifecycle management so that
both the companies could easily track the necessary modifications made in the contract and add
effective amendments thereafter.
 Reporting and Auditing:
Regular audits of the contracts would assure Waitrose that value is being realised and obligations
are being met. These audits are necessary to identify the compliance of both the parties towards
the agreement terms and during uncertainties and risks (Horton, 2016).
Ways to manage and monitor relevant documentation:
For an organisation like Waitrose & Partners, it is of vital importance to manage and
monitor documentation as being a supermarket chain operating on a large scale. There are large
number of documentation on a daily basis which are required to be managed effectively. Since
the rise in technological advancements, the firm could increase its effectiveness while managing
documentation is by going digital. This requires the firm to convert their existing documents into
digital documents and generate new documents using digital platform. This eradicates the use
and wastage of paper and keep the files safe during misshapen. There are ways in which
Waitrose could manage and monitor their documentation digitally:
 Strategically naming and storing files.
 Effective synchronisation of documentation to be effectively accessed and monitored.
 Using efficient quality control systems that can not be bypassed under any circumstances.
 Storing the documentations using cloud storage that would safeguard the files even after
they get deleted from the servers.
M2. RFP process within Waitrose
In Waitrose, it is imperative that the firm develops effective RFP processes to satisfy its
each demand timely and effectively. RFP along with other documentation like Statement of
Work (SOW) must be crafted well, along with the necessary details of the company like its
overview, goals attained, objectives etc. During client discovery and selection of vendors, the
company must focus on developing long term relationships that also be cost effective for the firm
to maximize their profitability. Contract awarding process also be well structured and the
contract must be crafter well. In case the breach of contract, the following consequences like

lawsuits or recovery payment must be mentioned in the contract itself. This would allow them to
find vendors who are willing to work on ethical terms.
D2. Critical evaluation of competitive tendering and contracting process
According to Jeong, 2016, to make the contract impactful and with minimal risk, the
required steps must be taken by companies. Waitrose must also also consider taking these steps
to aid the purpose:
 During identification and authoring, the subject matter and each clause must be
effectively checked in order to avoid any risk in the future. A thorough proof-reading is
required to minimise risk.
 The negotiation terms must be well communicated to the clients and approval must be
given in order to successfully conduct the process and minimise risk.
 The revision and amendments must be crafted well in accordance with the party to avoid
future conflicts.
TASK 3
P5. Developing an appropriate pitch
A pitch refers to the presentation given by the employees or managers of an organisation
to its investors. The medium of a pitch however could be letter, e-mail, or an impromptu
conversation. The agenda of a business pitch is to secure the funds as well as resources that are
required to ensure sustainability as well as enhance profitability. For a successful business
pitching, it is essential for the presenters to inculcate the competitive advantages of the company.
These advantages would allow the firm to ensure engagement of investors from the company. It
is also essential in case a new product or service is launched. Investors need to determine the
factors that could assure them of higher returns of their investment (Haddad, 2014). Waitrose
need to apply key principles while pitching that helps it to gain competitive advantages.
However, it is very crucial for the presenters to be clear about these principles to ensure a long-
term interest of the investors in the operations of the firm.
The principles essential for sustainable competitive advantages in Waitrose & Partners
are mentioned below:
 Brand Loyalty: