Reciprocal business problems
29 August 2012
Q: I am in the middle of a negotiation with a supplier who is also a customer of ours. It has hinted that they if it is not awarded this tender, then it may take away its business with us. What should we do?
Becky Sandford, director at PMMS Consulting Group, writes: There are five basic approaches to negotiation – compromise, bargaining, threat, logic and emotion. In this situation, the supplier is using “threat”.
The threat is quite explicit and it is worth asking why the other party feels the need
to be so blunt, as threat is...