Introduction to Negotiation Strategy
At Oak Spring University, we provide corporate level professional Negotiation Strategy and other business case study solution. Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning case study is a Harvard Business School (HBR) case study written by John J-H Kim, Christine An. The Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning (referred as “Zeal Danner” from here on) case study provides evaluation & decision scenario in field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship. It also touches upon business topics such as - negotiation strategy , negotiation framework, Entrepreneurship, Product development.
Negotiation strategy solution for case study Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning ” 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?
"Set in 2014, this case follows John Danner and his team at Zeal as they consider their product development strategy. In February 2013, serial entrepreneurs John Danner and Sanjay Noronha co-found Zeal, an education technology start up providing a web-based, mobile learning platform that helps students from Kindergarten to 8th grade build math and literacy skills based on Common Core State Standards through personalized learning plans. Having been a teacher and founder of a successful network of charter schools, Danner believes learning does not have to be limited to the classroom and wants to create a product that can connect students, parents, and teachers to facilitate individual student learning. Furthermore, he believes that offering a social, personalized learning tool can offer a fun way for students to learn and can also save time for teachers who want to provide differentiated instruction. Based out of the offices of the NewSchools Venture Fund in Palo Alto, Danner and Noronha work to rapidly develop the product with their founding team and their teacher partners at Rocketship Education, a K-5 charter school organization providing blended instruction combining technology and traditional methods. After several iterations, the Zeal team launches the latest version of Zeal in Fall 2014. While reflecting on their process to find product-market fit, Danner and his team wonder where to pivot next and seek an appropriate business model that considers their customer and user base. The case describes the student, parent, and teacher features offered by the evolving Zeal product, and how the team begins with a focus on personalized, peer-to-peer learning and, based on feedback, refines the product to add in-class features and create a teacher product. Students will have the opportunity to explore how an early SaaS start-up in the educational technology space can approach early product development, pilot in classrooms, and connect with different stakeholders."
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, clearly understanding the arbitrage . 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 “Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning” 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 (Negotiations options), 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 and other people doing the mediation. According to “John J-H Kim, Christine An”, 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 “Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning ”, 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 “Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning” can make for an effective negotiation strategy and will make it easier to negotiate with this party the next time as well.
John J-H Kim, Christine An (2018), "Zeal: Launching Personalized and Social Learning Harvard Business Review Case Study. Published by HBR Publications.
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