“We take a buck, we shoot it full of steroids and we call it leverage.” -Gordon Gecko (Wall Street 2)   Leverage - a word that has such meaning it could be used to define itself. When it co...

These are tough times to be in business. Costs are rising but selling prices are not, mainly due to global competition. The arithmetic is simple: profits are being squeezed. Finding ways to drive down...

That’s the question Attorney Mark Grieco asked procurement and supply management professionals attending a member meeting of ISM-Greater Rhode Island at Banneker Industries in North Smithfield.

The results are in for your RFP (Request for Proposal), now it’s time to pick the supplier(s), sign the contract, and place the orders (Woohoo!).  But, have you considered the next critical step ...

Procurement and supply chain professionals must be aware of and strive to improve their emotional intelligence. It has a key impact in negotiations. Soft skills are becoming more important - even in the digital age.

I spent the last couple of weeks reading The Contract Negotiation Handbook by Stephen R. Guth Esq., and despite how it may initially sound, I came away with one critical realization: I am a pop tart. ...

One idea plus one idea equals three ideas or more. You have a cow, I have a bull, together we have a business. When the output is greater than the sum of the inputs, this is value creation and it is t...

For anyone who has read the other books in the Vested Outsourcing series, Getting to We (published in August 2013) is the logical next step in the pursuit of more collaborative, value-based relationsh...

Buying and Selling Information, by career salesperson Michael L. Gruenberg, is a guide to help buyers of information services (think subscription-based online databases). Beyond this very specific cas...

Negotiation for Purchasing Professionals is the second book by Jonathan O’Brien that we have reviewed. Earlier this year we reviewed Category Management in Purchasing. While each of the books has a di...

“To succeed in business is more complex than it used to be - it is no longer economically desirable to control all the components of your customer value proposition.” (p. 6)   Strategic Procureme...

“I cannot guarantee whether you will be successful after a well-prepared negotiation, but I can 100 percent guarantee failure or finding yourself outsmarted and in a concessionary position if you choo...

“Technology is the easy part. It is always the people who apply the tools who make a difference.”  - Jacob Gorm Larsen, A Practical Guide to E-Auctions for Procurement, p. 7   When Jacob Gor...

Picture this: your organization needs to create a multi-year contract covering critical components for its manufacturing process. Because of the technical nature of those components, management reques...

 Over the past few years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been cracking down on unethical billing practices at major telecom carriers like Verizon and AT&T. This past October, Verizon ...

How often can you find 80% savings in your telecom bills? When it comes to legacy services, more often than you’d think! In all industries there are mergers and acquisitions: Telecommunications and Te...

Listen daaahlings, let me tell you a little something about negotiating. Talking about money is so… GAUCHE. No no no, that won’t do at all. Today, enlightened procurement professionals collaborate. We innovate. We partner. We strategize. I do for you… you do for me… we have a relationship. No ugliness, no shoving. After all, there is no need to stoop to talking about dollars and cents. We have people for that. Right? Yes, well, have your people call my people: we’ll do lunch.

Oh please!

We can’t say that procurement no longer needs strong negotiating skills just because many spend categories are now being managed in a more relational way. Making that assertion demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about what it means to negotiate. Negotiation is a phase, not an action. There are a myriad of skills required to be an effective negotiator, and they are different for each set of circumstances.

This week’s featured webinar notes are from a recent IACCM event called ‘Negotiating Across Cultures: Understanding the Differences, Avoiding the Pitfalls’ which was hosted by Tim Cummins and Karen Walch. If you are an IACCM member, you can view the event on demand after logging in on their site.

This week’s featured webinar was the monthly event run by the Next Level Purchasing Association on 20 Ways To Create The Perfect Negotiation First Impression. If you missed the event, you can read a related blog post by Association President and CPO Charles Dominick.

You can also learn more about negotiation (among other topics) at the first Next Level Purchasing Association Conference in Pittsburgh, PA September 12-13, 2013.

This week’s webinar notes are from an August 21st webinar run by CPP Inc, the provider of the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator Assessment. The webinar was presented by Pamela Valencia, a CPP Solutions Consultant. The event is available on demand on CPPs site.

Being a better negotiator is a topic that you would think had been completely covered by now, but this event offered some new thoughts – even in a compressed 30-minute format. Because CPP is focused on personality, knowing yourself and your fellow negotiators was the core message to this event. Also key was understanding when two dynamics are at play at once so you can divide your reactions to them, and the attitudes they foster.