Negotiation Case

Coast News

I was playing the role of Terry Hernandez who is the executive officer at Coast News. The company bought a new press that will increase productivity and my job was to assure high quality news and editorial product.

I had to negotiate 5 key issues with the advertising manager Sandy Thurman. My goal was to make sure that advertising is given least importance as it can only bring short term revenues but impact reputation of the firm from long term perspective.

I prepared my plan for negotiating and listed my sources of power based on the priorities of the task. We went through each issue one by one and discussed the importance. Once we had discussed all the issues and we put forward our respective offer for each issue.

For Advertorial and deadline we did not reach a joint agreement and moved to other items. I knew that control over section 3 was of less importance to me and more importance to my partner. I used that opportunity as an advantage and agreed to give the center pages. We also agreed on the color photos and spot color.

We then started discussing options for advertorial and deadline and after nearly 40 mins we did not reach a conclusion. We both wanted to make an agreement but could not come to a joint clonclusion.

I was thinking of agreeing to 82 quality points but I made sure not to give the last offer. After several discussions suddenly my partner offered me an offer that took me by surprise.

His final offer was to give me the deadline of 1pm and no advertorials. Instead he asked me to give him control over section 2 , spot color of 5 ads and 2 color photos. At first I thought he was kidding because I never expected to get so many quality points. I ended up with 109 quality points which was the highest.

I thought at the end my partner gave away his BATNA and agreed to settle on a low offer.