Assessing Pitch and Negotiation Outcomes: Unit 44 Report

This report, focused on Unit 44: Pitching and Negotiation Skills, analyzes the outcomes of a pitch and negotiation processes. It categorizes pitch outcomes into silence, rejection, conditional offers, and positive firm decisions, highlighting the importance of clear communication and professional conduct. The report examines how organizations fulfill their obligations post-pitch, emphasizing the need to meet deadlines, respect budgets, and maintain high standards of service. It identifies potential issues such as delays, budget constraints, and quality control, and stresses the significance of having contingency plans and effective risk management strategies. The report recommends ways to fulfill post-pitch obligations, including regular meetings, transparent financial reporting, and adherence to contractual agreements. It also evaluates the role of project managers in overseeing issues, differentiating between risk assessment and risk management. The report emphasizes the importance of communication across all levels, training employees to identify and handle issues, and having a proactive approach to risk mitigation.

Unit 44: Pitching and Negotiation Skills
Perfect Pitch: Report

LO4 Assess the outcome of a pitch and negotiation.
P6 Assess the potential outcomes of a pitch.
There are different pitches outcomes and we can summarise them in four main
categories:
1. Silence-Not receiving an answer is quite a common outcome, and although some
might say it is better than rejection, this outcome doesn’t allow you to move and
make any decisions. A firm decision is always better than incertitude. If the
party you negotiated with tells you they will get in touch in, for example, 2
weeks, be patient and don’t try to reach to them sooner than the term given.
Delays might occur, but sometimes you should ask yourself If the wait is worth it.
If the wait is longer than professionally acceptable, it would be useful to enquire.
2. Rejection-Rejection is a clear answer than can allow you to move forward.
Rejection can occur, however, do not burn bridges or act unprofessional If this
occur. After rejection, enquire about your results and maintain relations for
future projects.
3. Conditional Offer-Some companies might ask you to reach certain milestone and
criteria before moving forward with the project. Some terms and conditions
might be subject to negotiation. Conditional offers are quite common, and they
represent an opportunity to correct certain aspects of the pitch. Terms that are
usually subject to negotiation are: deadlines, budget, policies. Considering the
previous Case study, the negotiation between the RFP issuer and the Coffee Shop
might produce the following outcomes: The insurance agreements for the new
Coffee shop, on the premises of CityBank's headquarter, are an extension of the
insurances of the existing Cuisine Coffee, the Shop expects the RFP issuer to
cover half of the expenses for these insurances. The Bank might re discuss this
request and say that The Shop won’t require to pay rent or other utilities bills
when operating on the premises of the Bank’s headquarter. On the other side, the
Shop might highlight their social contribution and the need of sources to support
social programmes. Another factor that is often negotiated is concerned with
deadlines, for example, The Bank might need the Shop to open sooner.
4. Positive firm decision-This type of decision is clear and enables you to proceed
with the plan.
P7 Determine how organisations fulfil their obligation from a pitch, identifying
potential issues that can occur
● When winning a pitch make sure you can deliver what it’s been requested and
what you said you would.
● Respect deadlines and budgets, although, there are occasions that can cause
delays: natural disasters, third parties, casualties. The Shop should make sure

these eventualities are stated when signing the final contract. Furthermore,
having good insurances would help with covering extra costs.
● Always complying with the law and deliver high standard food/services. The risk
is to incur in health & safety policies breach. This will ruin the Shop’s reputation
and future collaborations but would also damage the Banks’ image.
● Regular meetings and full cooperation to fix issues when they arise and to
implement relationships.
● Provided invoices and financial reports, be transparent.
M4 Recommend ways in which an organisation can fulfil their post-pitch
obligations, highlighting any potential issues.
Let’s consider a successful outcome and the steps that follow the pitch negotiation. If
successful, the Coffee Shop should meet the Bank Group as soon as possible to arrange
activities, define deadlines and budgets, implement the contract. The contract might
need enforcement and changes that will affect Coffee Shop’s old contracts with other
parties such as suppliers. This is a risk to consider prior to the final contract. The Shop
should inform his old partners about the changes and how this will affect them to
maintain good relationships but also to make sure he will fulfil his obligations when
opening the new shop. Audit and licenses ought to be sorted according to the law before
finalizing the deal. The Shop has the duty to provide high standards equipment as stated
on his RFP answer. Failing to provide the right licensed and improvement from an audit
can result in fines, time waste and deterioration of relationships.
Key performance indicators are a useful tool to measure the Shop’s performance. The
business plan provided by the Shop indicated regular reports to the Bank, therefore,
having an interpretation key that both party recognise would prevent from
misunderstandings and help with monitoring both parties’ operating.
Both parties agreed on the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Shop
stated its commitment to embrace the Bank’s project. As this is an essential element of
the RFP, The Shop should maintain its promises and start cooperating on different
social programs. The risk is to focus more on the financial and practical part of the
contract ignoring the different shades of the RFP.
Finally, the official contract that all parties will sign should include all the details and
agreements discussed. Oral agreements do not have the same validity of paper one and
the risk is to avoid certain obligations because not stated on the paper and signed.

D4 Critically evaluate the pitch and post-pitch outcomes to determine potential
issues and risk management.
The project manager oversees these issues since the first beginning of the project. It
might be useful to make a difference between risk management and risk assessment.
Donald Teale, Senior Manager, writer and professor would define Risk assessment as “a
uncertain event of set of circumstances, which should it occur, will have an effect on the
achievement of the projects’ objectives”, (Teale, 2001). On the other hand, risk
management is a perpetual entity, part of the business strategy
Assuming the outcome is a positive one, the Shop’s mission is to ensure its obligations
are fulfilled. The issues that are most likely to arise during our case study fall in these
categories: time, budget, quality, communications, and policies. I would consider Teale’s
risk assessment tool to identify the risk fields, impact, and likelihood.
A similar tool that validates Teales’ Matris is also illustrated by Jason Westland, CEO of
ProjectManager.com. Furthermore, Westland’s contribute takes in consideration the
importance of communication across all levels as tool to ensure all members of a team
are enabled to assess and tackle issues (Landau, 2016). The Shop should make sure all
its employees have the right training to spot issues and to handle them, for example
hygiene or safety issues. Communication is a key principal also according to the best
sailing author David Maister who highlights the importance of listening and
communicating to both colleagues and customers (Maister, 2003).
Another writer project manager senior, Richard Newton, validates the importance of
risk management and make an interesting distinction between personal risk and project
risk in order to encourage professionals to discern between issues that affects the
business and issues that affects people’s personal reputation (Newton, 2009). He argues
that some managers might deliberately ignore or certain risks or issues in order to
protect their image, hence the importance of having good communication and
monitoring across all levels as Maister and Westland stated. Another specification that I
found interesting is the difference between risk and effect. For example, If the manager

of Coffee Shop might be late with delivering a service, he might say that “there is a risk
to deliver this service late”. However, Newton points out that “being late” is not the risk
but the effect. The risk is what caused the delay. I found this point of view useful
because it underlines the importance of being proactive and identifies what caused the
delay as risk factor. Same logic could apply for other issues such as budgeting and
quality. It is clear by now that a project is not exempted from risk and issues, the
outcome however is determined by a business’ response to these entities. Coffee Shop
should have a contingency plan, know when to activate it, make sure it’s safe and
provide the right resources to constantly implement it.