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NEGOTIATION JOURNAL

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INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION

MOHANAKRISHNAN SIDDHARTH MOHAN

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102624
MIBD4-1005A
APRIL 9TH 2011

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NEGOTIATION JOURNAL

CASE 1: BIOPHARM-SELTEK

The first negotiation was about the factory buying off and selling case. My Negotiator was Luca
Saurwein. In this case I was the seller and Luca was the buyer. I would like to share my
experience in such a negotiation.

Firstly, this was the first negotiation I have ever done.We were provided with a negotiation sheet
with all the facts given to negotiate. It was very new experience to sit with a different cultured
person to negotiate about a particular deal. To determine the needs of Luca was not an easy job.
In a negotiation to study the opponent’s nature is very necessary. Knowing Luca prior was a
slight advantage in the deal but I felt it never helped as much as I thought.

Now coming to the deal, this deal was about selling two most important things a plant along with
its patent. The two parties which were involved are BIO-PHARM AND SELTEK. I was playing
the role of CFO of Seltek. When I was given the sheet I was reading the case through and I found
out that I need be a little smart in selling this plant and patent to the opposite party for a good
deal. To do this I had to involve myself thoroughly and chalk down all the necessary points
required to get the opponent nailed to a attractive deal. Now coming back to the case sheet, I
provided me information of both the buyer and seller. That is information about me and the
opponent.

Prior to this I was given a pre-negotiation sheet , in which I had to fill details about various items
I was going to negotiate for and how much I was going to complete a deal for. There was one
major point I noted down carefully the Lowest price for which I was going to accept the deal ,
which was otherwise known as the walk away price. I had to read the case sheet again and I
made up an amount and kept that as the lowest deal I can accept.

Now there always had to be a deal which could both satisfy both the buyer and the seller. Since
Luca was the buyer , I did not want to have any small talks to get the process going I directly
stepped into business. I was not sure if I was doing the right thing but at that very moment I
thought that would give me an upper hand so I gave him the option of giving me a price he
wanted to make an offer for. The amount he offered was absolutely ridiculuous that I should
have walked off the deal, but the opponent had a small grin suggesting that I am going to offer
you more don’t move. So I sat there and I directly made my lowest offer. Coming to this lowest
offer , this was not actually decided by us, but was decided by the case sheet that was provided to
us.

So as soon as I made my lowest offer, I felt I laid a trap for myself by giving him my lowest deal.
But the at times you need to hype certain values to make your deal look better and beneficial.
The beneficiary factor what I gave him was that I told him that the patent was a very rare one and
it had to be bought from me along with the plant for a very good rate.

This dealing was getting better and better as it went on and on. I had to read the case again in
front of him carefully and I decided that I was going to sell the patent to him at any cost. But I
learnt that the patent was not in the negotiation list given to my opponent. But attractive deals
attract people and make people act a bit faster. I told him some facts that were actually little
inflated to that given in my case sheet.

The best part in this negotiation came now; he said he would offer me a little higher than my
base deal because I was going to provide him all my workforce and the experience. The deal a
little bigger but I had to provide him the patent free of cost. I was thinking it was not possible but
he came up with one more goof offer that really attracted me. As I said earlier attractive deals are
meant to be so. He said if I would give the patent free, he would run the plant with the patent for
a year and he would give me 5% of the total sales of the particular product obtained from the
patent. That offer was so attractive and meaningful one that I said the deal is done then and there.
When I calculated whether I was making a profit or a loss with this deal I saw that I was so
profitable and the buyer was also equally profitable. I say a successful negotiation is that when
both the parties are equally benefitted. I was so happy that my first negotiation experience
provided me with lots of necessary information that could boost me up for more in the future.
CASE 2: THE PLAYER

This was my second case provided by my esteemed professor. After the experience with Luca
my good friend , I was awaiting to know who my next opponent was going to be, I was not
expecting who came forward to be my opponent- It was Yatin Khinvasara. Why such a hype to
Yatin? The answer is simple I know this person left right center in all aspects. But at all times we
were in the same team doing a work together and now I see him on the opposite side of the table
against me. I was thrilled to have this negotiation getting started.

As per the case sheet I was given the role of a Producer of a huge Hollywood production house
and my opponent was the director with two major box office hits. Even though I knew the
opponent in real life he was going to adopt another character who was going to negotiate all his
needs. Even though he learns the nature of the character given to him in the sheet he will act as
per his character too. I had a small upper hand I thought , but he knew me too was the real fact so
we were even in knowing each others’ strength and weakness. As we were progressing I got a
companion for myself as a team mate a new person coming to assist me It was Anusha Anandh,
who was assisting me in this negotiation. A shrewd woman herself had already jolted down a lot
of points for the negotiation. Very well let the negotiation begin!

First as usual as director producer relations we had a gentle talk and and we were off to business.
In this case there was one criteria given in the case sheet. There were like 11 items to negotiate
between us and as we come to deal for each and every deal we get a certain amount of points. As
the saying goes One man’s boon is another man’s bane. So was the point system all those which
were benefitting me to most was making him loose and vice versa, but if both compromised we
could make a very good offer. But being a “player”, I wanted to win the race comfortably.

So the negotiation started and all the deals that had to workout had worked out as planned some
had to be changed , I wanted to make a deal here . I was not in any mood to let go off a good deal
here. I wanted to make some good offers but there were lots of counter offers from the opposite
side. Anusha made things a little more comfortable by calculating our range of safety. Yes, we
had to cross a safety limit for accepting the deal and as we progressed 80% anusha was sure that
we had reached the safe zone.
The deal with yatin was very interesting he made offers just like every director would make, he
had gained some confidence as things progressed he made lots of counteroffers and he was sure I
would accept those offers and I was not ready to accept all those offers. It was very clever of him
to get me to accept some of the offers he made. The major thing in this negotiation was the time
limit given to us to finish the deal. It was very less and we had a lot of items to negotiate. This
negotiation has given me the confidence how to get to know the opponent and how to deal with
lots of items and how to manage the negotiations and get the deal done once and for all.

CASE 3: LES FLORETS:

This was the third negotiation for me and the first negotiation which was done in a group. The
other two negotiations that were given to us were individual negotiations and this one was a
group one, the prior one’s decisions were taken individually and now any decisions that were to
be done as a group.

Now the third case was a group negotiation, firstly my companions were Petre Bedos and
Priyanka Lonkar and the opponents were two familiar faces that I had dealt in my earlier
negotiations Yatin and Luca. When we were given the case sheet I was not so sure as to what to
do so this is when the group’s act had to come together. In this case we were the seller of a
restaurant. It was a group of 3 who wanted to sell their restaurant and get the money to start for a
holiday and then come back to start a new business. The people who provided the licence for the
restaurant were the parties who were interested in the buyout.

My role in the negotiation was to be one of the owners of the restaurant. We had quite enough
information about the opponent and they too had a lot of information about us. When we started
to negotiate with the opposite party it didn’t start off smooth. This was not because of the
negotiators. It was because of the case provided to us. There was no dealing point in this case. It
was too certain that this case was leading to a no deal.

No specific strategy was chalked down by my team members. We were like lets shoot the big
gun and then start negotiation. So we decided to quote the price first hand so that we could
clearly get an upper hand. They were not at all ready for a deal for the price quoted earlier and
they were like quoting a down trodden price and we could not accept that price because it was
way below our walk away price. Just then I remembered I laid down my own trap in the first
case by opening the amount of the walk away price and I was sure that I was not going to do the
same mistake this time around.

Prior to all this when the case sheet was given to the three of us we sat down for a while and we
discussed certain plans like how to deal with them and how to get some clear opinions about
what they are expecting from us and various other things. We wanted this as a start up for the
negotiation. Getting to know the opponent is the upper hand one gains in a negotiation. So we
knew the very moment we started the negotiation that there was no way that they were going to
pay a lot of money for the restaurant.

We had one plan really clear in our negotiation every single decision taken on our side of the
table was always a joint decision. When there was a decrease in the price of negotiation or when
we decided that they were not getting to deal with us properly.

In a group presentation like this one thing was really important. The mindset for all the members
have to be parallel for it to run smooth. If one goes hap hazard then the decision that is to be
taken would also be a wrong one for sure. In our case be it Petre or Priyanka they had the same
mindset as what I had and vice versa. As things progressed we were really gelling as a team.
Since the BATNA of both the groups didn’t match there was no deal in this case. This case
demanded a NO DEAL and not the negotiators.

CASE 4: INTERNATIONAL LODGING MERGER

This was the fourth case in the international negotiation and this was the second group project.
This case could be called the test of our prior negotiation experiences. Now that our confidence
had grown from the past three negotiations we were ready to handle any kind of pressure. Now
this was again a group work and I had a partner in Abhinav. He was a shrewd character, but not
so forward thinking , so it was a tough asking for us to deal with the negotiation. I was assigned
the role of a AAA hotel executive committee where me and my partner had to negotiate up to six
item with the opposition part. The major deal in this case was that the opposition party was
supposed to merge with us as a part of the deal. This negotiation is done to make two large hotels
(AAA and LAMBERT) merge and become one.

My opponents on the other side of the table were three, one face who had partnered me earlier
negotiation Priyanka alongside with her were Ashwath and Boris. I had no prior dealings with
others but was sure about priyanka’s mindset. I was going to take advantage on this issue. We
had a prior task in this negotiation to ask some personal questions about the opponents due to
ashwath’s soft nature we were able to extract a lot of information from him.

This case was very similar to that of Case 2 the player case, this too had points that each team
had to achieve and it had a specific time limit to negotiate the six factors. It was not so
impressive arguing for certain items within a time limit. It was fine. We started negotiating and
one thing was getting stronger was one’s own needs. Boris was the major opponent who was
arguing for them and we had to deal accordingly. It was too difficult to handle all these issues in
such a short span we were more considered about the points that we needed cross the safe zone.
The major information was not of much importance rather the points to be acquired were
seemingly important.

Communication was very important and the communication within the team was not very much
present on both sides of the table maybe it was because of their game plan but definitely was not
our game plan. The mindset and wavelength didn’t match much with in my team mate. His views
were too much different from that of mine. The negotiation was getting nowhere with such a
situation so we had a common plan to just pass the safe zone with the points.

The four cases were very helpful for me to find out my strength and weakness in negotiating a
issue with a counter party. I improved my communication and debating skills. This course was
really helpful and I am sure it will pay off in the near future.