Negotiation Skills and Strategies: A Business Report

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PITCHING AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO1 Evaluate the context of negotiation and identify the information required to prepare for a
negotiation.......................................................................................................................................4
P1. Determine what a negotiation is, why it occurs and who the key stakeholders are during a
negotiation process......................................................................................................................4
P2 Evaluate the key steps and information required for negotiating and generating deals.........5
M1. Present a concise rationale for the negotiation process, including detailed steps that
organizations go through during a negotiation process and the information required in
preparation...................................................................................................................................6
D1 Negotiation process & valid solutions for dealing with issues..............................................6
LO2 Manage documentation relevant to tenders and contracts.......................................................7
P3 RFP process and types of documentation...............................................................................7
P4 Contractual process and management of relevant documentation.........................................8
M2 RFP process and key documentation....................................................................................9
D2 Competitive tendering and contract process along with recommendations..........................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
Enhancing the negotiation skills is very essential in day to day business transactions in both the
formal as well as in an informal manner for highly contributing towards the sustainable business
success along with building & maintaining better relationships. The complete assignment is in
the form of business report which demonstrates the key importance of negotiation skills &
process of negotiation according to the case study of Microsoft which won the negotiations with
AOL by strongly competing against the market leader of browser, i.e., Netscape with the help of
effectively & efficiently utilizing its available resources of marketing. AOL is an American
company of web portal which provides online services, founded in the year 1985.
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LO1 Evaluate the context of negotiation and identify the information required
to prepare for a negotiation
P1. Determine what a negotiation is, why it occurs and who the key stakeholders are during
a negotiation process.
The term negotiation refers to the strategic decision in which the issues are resolved which is
acceptable by both parties. Each part of the negotiation tries to persuade others for agreeing with
her or his point of view. All the parties involved try to avoid arguments by negotiation but agree
for reaching some compromise form. Two or more parties are involved in the process of
negotiation that comes together for reaching at the end goals by making resolution or
compromise which is acceptable by all the parties involved in it. The position of one of the party
is put forward as in this case the position of Microsoft Company was leading in comparison to
Netscape. Creative strategies were used by Microsoft for enhancing their position and
weakening Netscape in the negotiation process (Moosmayer, et. al, 2013).
The negotiation among Microsoft, Netscape with AOL for the browser war was won by the
Microsoft with the help of marketing resources. In the year 1996, the CEO of AOL, Steve Case
was seeking urgently a top internet browser for the marketing of their products and this was the
reason that Microsoft and Netscape engaged in negotiation.
Stakeholders are the persons who are affected directly by the decision made by the company and
the outcomes of decisions. There are various stakeholders who are involved in the process of
negotiation. While negotiating with AOL the senior managers, procurement managers, investors
and staff members of Netscape and Microsoft were involved (Vandeputte, 2015).
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P2 Evaluate the key steps and information required for negotiating and generating deals
The process of negotiation includes the overall interaction of each & every member working
within the whole group or within the business organization, as in the case of Microsoft. Five
essential steps which are included under the negotiation process are being described as below:
 Planning & preparation: Proper planning is very essential to be ensured & enhanced
before initiating the negotiations with any other company for getting aware of all the
conflicts that may arise in the future time period. All the essential stakeholders who are to
be involved in the negotiation process are to be identified & all those problems should be
discussed in the meetings which can create hurdles in the middle of executing the whole
process (Coppens, et.al. 2014). All the necessary factors are to be known which will be
pertinent to the situation.
 Defining the ground rules: After preparing & planning for all the conflicts in the
discussion, the next step is to set up the necessary rules & procedures which will help the
business managers to solve out the major conflicts in the process of negotiation.
Implementing the specific procedure is very essential for reaching up to the common
decision in the context of negotiation.
 Justification & clarification: Under this step, the original demands of both the business
organizations are being justified, clarified & amplified and this need not be
“confrontational”. Sharing the necessary information to another party will reduce the
chances of conflicts & other related issues. With the help of conducting favorable
discussion, the demands of business organizations can be met in a common manner
(Faherty, 2015).
 Bargaining & problem solving: The proper bargain is considered as the essence of the
negotiation process, in other words, in order to hash out the agreement in an official
manner; both the parties discuss the actual give & take. Under this step, the business
organizations of Microsoft & ALO may have made the concessions.
 Closure & implementation: This is the last step of the negotiation process under which
all the rules & procedures have been made & also effectively monitored as well as
implemented. Under all these stages, the involved parties, including Netscape, ALO &
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Microsoft have bargained in a systematic manner along with deciding upon how they can
allocate the limited available resources & can maintain the standard balance among
different interest of each & every one along with ensuring & enhancing the greater level
of business deals.
M1. Present a concise rationale for the negotiation process, including detailed steps that
organizations go through during a negotiation process and the information required in
preparation.
The process of negotiation is important as this leads to the organization’s success and better
relations can be established between the company negotiating and the company with which the
negotiation is taking place. In the given case due to negotiation some of the shares were
surrendered by Microsoft to AOL and the loftier goal was achieved by the company in making a
huge stride forward by gaining browser market’s essential share. Detailed steps of negotiation
help in defining the plan for the negotiation. Rules are defined on the basis of which the
negotiation can take place. Clarification and justification help the companies to the negotiation in
informing and educating each other on the issues that are involved and how it can be arrived at.
Bargaining process provides concessions that are required to be made between the parties of
negotiation (Steele, et. al, 2017).
D1 Negotiation process & valid solutions for dealing with issues
The negotiation process involves five major steps of planning & preparing for all the major
conflicts, defining of the essential rules & procedures, justifying & clarifying about the needs or
demands to one another, bargaining in the systematic way & closing as well as the
implementation for leading towards the great business deals. The effective solutions which can
be developed for dealing with various kinds of issues related to the negotiation involves the high
level of research for completely knowing about the culture of other business organization,
listening to each & everything properly & consciously, identifying & implementing the most
suitable alternative and keeping the main aim of winning till the end (Williams and Sullivan,
2012).
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LO2 Manage documentation relevant to tenders and contracts
P3 RFP process and types of documentation
The process of “Request for Proposal” (RFP) includes the concept of documentation &
solicitation which helps the business organization to effectively communicate about the
particular need of the business & also enhance the invitation of different vendors or large
businesses for submitting the proposals in the relation of acquiring the favorable opportunity.
This process reflects how the particular business organization presents itself to all the
professional contacts. It is the worldwide practice which involves the evaluation of responses &
implementation of appropriate decisions (Glackin, 2014). The RPF process includes the
following essential steps:
 Preparation & assessment of data (organizational information)
 Creating the RPF draft, review & customization
 Evaluating the response of different vendors, selecting the committee for evaluation &
developing the metrics for evaluation
 Closing the process with proposals evaluation
Apart from RPF, the Request for Information (RFI) and Statement of Work (SOW) are some
essential documents which are necessary for executing the process of negotiation. RFI process or
document helps the business managers for conducting a survey in the whole market for the
purpose of exploring the most favorable business opportunities. On the other hand, SOW is that
effective document which provides a detailed description for discussing the various roles &
responsibilities of the contractor. It can be the binding & legal contract (Panayiotou, et.al. 2015).
Along with necessary documents, below are some other effective documents which are also to be
essentially required:
 Request for tender: It contains specific details related to the solicit proposals. The
standard structure is being followed by RFT which provides a greater level of flexibility.
 Request for quotation: The main focus of this document is upon the pricing factor as
compared to other important ideas or concepts.
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 Request for qualification: It is utilized to determine the eligibility or the qualification of
all those contractors who are interested.
P4 Contractual process and management of relevant documentation
Some effective activities or essential practices are being conducted, executed or implemented by
the contracting parties for ensuring & enhancing that the undertaken contract is being performed
in a systematic manner. Ensuring that each & every contracting party performs the essential roles
& responsibilities in the effective as well as in an efficient manner is the main objective of the
contractual procedures. Following are the necessary stages which are to be followed in the
contracting process:
 Selecting the contract using different types of proposals & various forms or templates
 Collecting or gathering relevant & necessary required information
 Choosing the appropriate negotiator for the purpose of developing as well as reviewing
the essential agreements
 Reviewing the whole process of contracting
 Singing the contract
Effective management & monitoring of all the necessary documents is very essential with the
help of conducting the proper evaluation. The monitoring of all the relevant documents helps in
ensuring various different stakeholders, as in the case of AOL American Company, including the
investors, professional expert advisors & other funders & also how all the organizational
members perform their assigned responsibilities along with ensuring their accountability,
effectively & efficiently (Rendon and Rendon, 2016). It has also been discussed that different
forms of documents are being possessed by different business organizations for the purpose of
enhancing key evaluation. Apart from all these, the necessary documents also help in formalizing
the standard relationships among different business organizations including the contractual
agreement or the Memorandum of Understanding.
M2 RFP process and key documentation
The process of RPF is the most commonly & widely used procurement tactic which is utilized by
various different business organizations while grabbing the most favorable business
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opportunities. This process/ document is used to understand the essential requirements for any of
the particular project for the purpose of providing the best solutions. Along with the RPF
process, there are some other necessary documents also which are essential to be executed or
implemented, including, RFI, SOW, Requests for tender, qualification & quotation for the
purpose of exploring the most favorable business opportunities (Uhm, et.al. 2015). The
consequences of breaching up the contract include the reduction within the contractual price,
compensation for the damage, interest for delay & remedy of the defect. Sometimes, the parties
may agree upon all the identified consequences.
D2 Competitive tendering and contract process along with recommendations
The method of competitive tendering forces the suppliers to effectively & highly compete & gain
the value of money in a better manner. The effective recommendations for successfully
completing the tender within the lower level of risk includes the detailed analysis & evaluation
of all the details provided under the tender, addressing the criteria of selection, choosing &
selecting the suitable referees, submitting the competitive tender within the limited period of
time. All these favorable recommendations will help the business organization to highly compete
effectively & efficiently (Jonnalagadda and Petitti, 2013). The contractual process will also
enable the business managers to ensure the successful maintaining of all the required documents
in an appropriate manner.
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Conclusion
Hence, it can be concluded from the whole report that the negotiation is of great importance. It
helps in achieving the success and growth of the companies. Various steps are involved with the
help of which the process of negotiation is accomplished which involves planning, defining,
justification, bargaining, and closure. Data preparation and assessment, evaluation of the
response of the various vendors are some of the essential steps in the RPF process. For the
process of contacting the whole stage from the contact selection to contract signing are very
significant.
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References
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Learning by observing and pitching in: Benefits and processes of expanding
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2. Faherty, A., 2015. Developing enterprise skills through peer-assessed pitch
presentations. Education+ Training, 57(3), pp.290-305.
3. Glackin, C., 2014. The Social Business Challenge: Experiencing mission driven
entrepreneurship. Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship, suppl. Special Issue, pp.193-
220.
4. Jonnalagadda, S. and Petitti, D., 2013. A new iterative method to reduce workload in the
systematic review process. International journal of computational biology and drug
design, 6, p.5.
5. Moosmayer, D.C., Chong, A.Y.L., Liu, M.J. and Schuppar, B., 2013. A neural network
approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business
contexts. Expert Systems with Applications, 40(8), pp.3028-3035.
6. Panayiotou, N.A., Gayialis, S.P., Evangelopoulos, N.P. and Katimertzoglou, P.K., 2015.
A business process modeling-enabled requirements engineering framework for ERP
implementation. Business Process Management Journal, 21(3), pp.628-664.
7. Rendon, J.M. and Rendon, R.G., 2016. Procurement fraud in the US Department of
Defense: Implications for contracting processes and internal controls. Managerial
Auditing Journal, 31(6/7), pp.748-767.
8. Steele, P.T. and Beasor, T., 2017. Business negotiation: A practical workbook.
Routledge.
9. Uhm, M., Lee, G., Park, Y., Kim, S., Jung, J. and Lee, J.K., 2015. Requirements for
computational rule checking of requests for proposals (RFPs) for building designs in
South Korea. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 29(3), pp.602-615.
10. Vandeputte, P., 2015. Mediation and negotiation in business conflicts. In Business, Ethics
and Peace (pp. 315-331). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
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11. Williams, P. and Sullivan, H., 2012. Despite all we know about collaborative working,
why do we still get it wrong?. Journal of Integrated Care, 18(4), pp.4-15.
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