As the starting point from which all commercial transactions occur, from purchasing equipment to setting salaries, negotiatiosn in business is an essential skill no matter what field a negotiator finds herself. Using an objective standard can strengthen your proposal and eliminate emotional bias.
… Read Setting Standards in Negotiations
Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
negotiation topics in business
What are Negotiation Topics in Business?
Negotiation topics in business may include anything from international negotiations to mediating office disputes. Here are some of the topics you may regularly encounter.
From agreements to anchors to preparation to determining the best way to dress, negotiation topics in business cover a lot of ground. One of the most important negotiation topics in business is about creating value throughout the negotiation process.
We often approach negotiations with the assumption that the pie of resources is fixed, a mindset that leads us to interpret most competitive situations as purely win-lose.
It’s true that a small percentage of negotiations are distributive—that is, parties are restricted to making claims on a fixed resource, such as the price of a rug at a bazaar. However, in most business negotiations, many more issues than price are involved, such as delivery, service, financing, bonuses, timing, and relationships.
Another of the more important negotiation topics in business is that of your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, or BATNA. Your BATNA allows you to leverage your position at the bargaining table. The more appealing your best alternative is, the more comfortable you will feel asking for more in your current negotiation—secure in the knowledge that you have a good option waiting in the wings.
If you and your negotiating counterpart have thoroughly explored your interests and options, there’s no shame in walking away from a deal that doesn’t meet your interests as well as your BATNA does—in fact, it’s the right thing to do.
You can download a complimentary copy of our special report, Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals, right now! Discover how to boost your power at the bargaining table in this free special report, from Harvard Law School.
We will send you a download link to your copy of the report and notify you by email when we post new business negotiation advice and information on how to build a winning team to our website.
The following items are tagged negotiation topics in business:
Negotiated Agreements: Why You Should Limit Your Options
A process of finding your counterparts interests and reconciling them with your own. But what if you or your counterpart presents a myriad of options and offers at the negotiation table?
… Read More
Six Strategies for Creating Value at the Negotiation Table
In today’s market, consumers are often the more powerful parties in negotiations with sellers.
To claim the most value in your next haggling experience, use the following six negotiation strategies.
… Read More
Test Your Negotiation Decision-Making Ability
A negotiation research study using distributive negotiation examples sheds interesting light on decision-making capabilities, intelligence, and “intuition.”
… Read Test Your Negotiation Decision-Making Ability
In Business Negotiations, Dress the Part
Negotiators involved in high-stakes mergers and acquisitions typically come to the table armored in meticulously tailored apparel and designer shoes. But as Dana Mattioli reports in a recent Wall Street Journal negotiation topics in business article, those who are trying to woo business from an apparel company often end up dressing down at the bargaining … Read In Business Negotiations, Dress the Part
Business Negotiation: When is an Outsider Needed at the Negotiation Table
One of the most popular negotiation topics in business concerns the role of outsiders to the negotiation. In this article the Program on Negotiation explores how to include outsiders in both your strategy and at-the-table negotiations.
… Read More
Negotiation Topics in Business: Make a Bump Plan
Regrouping from the cancellation of the 2004–2005 season due to failed labor negotiations, National Hockey League (NHL) teams and players faced the challenge of radically restructuring their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in July 2005. The new CBA instituted a uniform cap (as well as a floor) on team payrolls. It also set maximums and minimums … Read Negotiation Topics in Business: Make a Bump Plan
Projecting Power at the Negotiation Table
Projecting power at the negotiation table is one tactic bargainers can employ to obtain their objectives in bargaining scenarios. In this article we examine Amy Cuddy’s research with regards to power, body language, and the impact they have on your negotiating skills and negotiation tactics.
… Read Projecting Power at the Negotiation Table
With Second Book Deal, Amy Schumer Gets the Last Laugh
Dissatisfied with her initial book contract, comedian Amy Schumer used her negotiation skills to bargain for an even better contract. Find out how she did it in this article drawn from examples of negotiation in real life.
… Read More
Team Building Negotiation Example: Chinese Women Face a “Sticky Floor”
What challenges do Chinese female negotiators face in negotiations in China? Like their counterparts in the West, female negotiators in China encounter barriers to doing business, but instead of a “glass ceiling,” many female Chinese feel they are rooted to a “sticky floor.”
… Read More