Introduction to Negotiation Strategy
At Oak Spring University, we provide corporate level professional Negotiation Strategy and other business case study solution. Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data case study is a Harvard Business School (HBR) case study written by William R. Kerr, Gamze Yucaoglu, Eren Kuzucu. The Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data (referred as “Aydin Yemeksepeti” 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, Change management, Customers, Data, Emerging markets, Entrepreneurial management, Growth strategy, Internet, IT, Supply chain.
Negotiation strategy solution for case study Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data ” 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?
In October 2016, Nevzat Aydin, co-founder and CEO of Yemeksepeti, the Turkish online food-ordering company, was looking over the company's quarterly results and projections for the upcoming year with his management team. It had been almost a year and a half since Aydin had agreed to sell the company's shares to Delivery Hero, the Berlin-based global leader in online and mobile food ordering, for $589 million. In 2016, the company had had grown to include more than 13,000 member restaurants servicing six million users and achieved a 41% year-on-year growth. Yemeksepeti operated with an EBITDA margin of over 50%. Although the company had introduced other revenue streams over the years, commissions remained as the main source of income. Aydin believed that, while there was plenty of room to grow by taking market share from phone orders, much could be done by revenue diversification; the company simply had too much valuable data to be ignored. What should the company do to take advantage of its data analysis capabilities and the new technologies on the market? What kind of outside-the-box solutions could create additional revenue streams and vertical growth capabilities? What about the cohort analysis and data generated from order histories? He motivated his the management team to come up with new ideas to put the vast amount of transaction data to use. The case describes potential avenues for a company to monetize its data, illustrates the pros and cons of each option. The case will help students think about how to prioritize growth over diversification, and forward think with regards to new technologies and customer trends.
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 “Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data” 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 “William R. Kerr, Gamze Yucaoglu, Eren Kuzucu”, 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 “Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data ”, 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 “Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data” can make for an effective negotiation strategy and will make it easier to negotiate with this party the next time as well.
William R. Kerr, Gamze Yucaoglu, Eren Kuzucu (2018), "Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data Harvard Business Review Case Study. Published by HBR Publications.
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