Introduction to Negotiation Strategy
At Oak Spring University, we provide corporate level professional Negotiation Strategy and other business case study solution. Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future? case study is a Harvard Business School (HBR) case study written by Gerald C. Kane, Doug Palmer, Anh Nguyen Phillips, David Kiron. The Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future? (referred as “Digital Respondents” from here on) case study provides evaluation & decision scenario in field of Technology & Operations. It also touches upon business topics such as - negotiation strategy, negotiation framework, Talent management.
Negotiation strategy solution for case study Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future? ” provides a comprehensive framework to analyse all issues at hand and reach a unambiguous negotiated agreement. At Oak Spring University, we provide comprehensive negotiation strategies that have proven their worth both in the academic sphere and corporate world.
What’s my BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) – my walkaway option if the deal fails?
What are my most important interests, in ranked order?
What is the other side’s BATNA, and what are his interests?
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Successfully incorporating today's digital technologies requires companies to work in new ways. To explore how digital technologies are changing the way companies do business, MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte surveyed more than 4,800 respondents and interviewed 19 business and thought leaders. The central question the authors asked: How are companies using digital technologies -such as social media, data and analytics, mobile devices and cloud computing -to compete and operate differently? Using results from these quantitative and qualitative data, the authors provide insights on the state of digital business and what managers need to know and do to navigate and benefit from these trends. A key concept behind this research is digital business maturity. The authors asked survey respondents to "imagine an ideal organization transformed by digital technologies and capabilities that improve processes, engage talent across the organization, and drive new and value-generating business models"and then to rate their company against that ideal on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the closest to the ideal). Forty-five percent of respondents placed their companies in the middle or "developing"group (ratings 4-6), while 29% put their companies in the higher "maturing"category (ratings 7-10). The remaining 26% placed their companies in the lower "early"group (ratings 1-3). Perhaps the main insight is that the key drivers of digital transformation are not the digital technologies themselves but business factors -in particular, strategy, culture and talent development. Effective digital strategies are less about acquiring and implementing the right technology than about reconfiguring the business to take advantage of the information these technologies enable. The authors found that the objectives of a company's digital strategy also differ depending on digital maturity. The vast majority of companies surveyed want to use digital technologies to improve customer interactions. What differentiates the most mature companies, however, is a willingness to use digital to transform their business more broadly. Respondents expressed a strong preference for working for a digitally mature company. However, a surprisingly high number of employees were dissatisfied with how their companies were reacting to digital trends overall.
By interests, we do not mean the preconceived demands or positions that you or the other party may have, but rather the underlying needs, aims, fears, and concerns that shape what you want. Negotiation is more than getting what you want. It is not winning at all cost. Number of times Win-Win is better option that outright winning or getting what you want.
Options are the solutions you generate that could meet your and your counterpart’s interests . Often people come to negotiations with very fixed ideas and things they want to achieve. This strategy leaves unexplored options which might be even better than the one that one party wanted to achieve. So always try to provide as many options as possible during the negotiation process. The best outcome should be out of many options rather than few options.
When soft bargainers meet hard bargainers there is always the danger of soft bargainers ceding more than what is necessary. To avoid this scenario you should always focus on legitimate standards or expectations. Standards are often external and objective measures to assess the fairness such as rules and regulations, financial values & resources , market prices etc. If the negotiated agreement is going beyond the industry norms or established standards of fairness then it is prudent to get out of the negotiation.
Every negotiators going into the negotiations should always work out the “what if” scenario. The negotiating parties in the “Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future?” has three to four plausible scenarios. The negotiating protagonist needs to have clear idea of – what will happen if the negotiations fail. To put it in the negotiating literature – BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. If the negotiated agreement is not better than BATNA then there is no point in accepting the negotiated solution.
One of the biggest problems in implementing the negotiated agreements in corporate world is – the ambiguity in the negotiated agreement. Sometimes the negotiated agreements are not realistic or various parties interpret the outcomes based on their understanding of the situation. It is critical to do negotiations as water tight as possible so that there is less scope for ambiguity.
Many negotiators make the mistake of focusing only on the substance of the negotiation (interests, options, standards, and so on). How you communicate about that substance, however, can make all the difference. The language you use and the way that you build understanding, jointly solve problems, and together determine the process of the negotiation with your counterpart make your negotiation more efficient, yield clear agreements that each party understands, and help you build better relationships.
Another critical factor in the success of your negotiation is how you manage your relationship with your counterpart. According to “Gerald C. Kane, Doug Palmer, Anh Nguyen Phillips, David Kiron”, the protagonist may want to establish a new connection or repair a damaged one; in any case, you want to build a strong working relationship built on mutual respect, well-established trust, and a side-by-side problem- solving approach.
According to
Harvard Business Review
, there are three types of negotiators – Hard Bargainers, Soft Bargainers, and Principled Bargainers.
Hard Bargainers – These people see negotiations as an activity that they need to win. They are less focused less on the real objectives of the negotiations but more on winning. In the “Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future? ”, do you think a hard bargaining strategy will deliver desired results? Hard bargainers are easy to negotiate with as they often have a very
predictable strategy
Soft Bargainers – These people are focused on relationship rather than hard outcomes of the negotiations. It doesn’t mean they are pushovers. These negotiators often scribe to long term relationship rather than immediate bargain.
Principled Bargainers – As explained in the seven elemental tools of negotiations above, these negotiators are more concern about the standards and norms of fairness. They often have inclusive approach to negotiations and like to work on numerous solutions that can improve the BATNA of both parties.
Open lines of communication between parties in the case study “Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future?” can make for an effective negotiation strategy and will make it easier to negotiate with this party the next time as well.
Gerald C. Kane, Doug Palmer, Anh Nguyen Phillips, David Kiron (2018), "Is Your Business Ready for a Digital Future? Harvard Business Review Case Study. Published by HBR Publications.
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