Negotiation Report

Background

It was the beginning of the second semester of the academic year 2010/2011 and I was feeling helplessly hopeless in getting the books required for my courses. This was as a result of the financial constraints I was facing considering that I received an email reminding me that I had an outstanding balance on my account. I was talking to a good friend of mine, Ms. K. Campbell. After hearing about my situation, Ms. Campbell offered to sell me an Industrial Relations text book that I needed at a cheaper cost than she had bought them for in the bookshop.

Ms. Campbell is a final year Human Resource Management Major and she too was facing similar challenges. Being the good friend she is, last year she loaned me her books but because of the current situation she now faces and she too needed text books and she decided that she was prepared to find every means possible to get those books especially now that she is short .40 of getting her first class degree honours. She offered to sell the book at an irrational price and the book did not worth the cost since wasn't in the best condition to be sold at that price even though it was still lower than what she had bought it for. She realized that I was not prepared to pay the price offered so we decided that we would meet to negotiate the price of the book on January 27 at 1:00pm so that we both could come to an agreed consensus.

Preparation

In developing a plan to proceed with the negotiation, there were certain activities that had to be considered. It is important that one consider the location, researching the other side, finding variables, finding criteria, guiding decisions, handling the opposition, isolating issues, developing the walkaway and deploying the walk away. Your place of choice for negotiation can have significant impact on the proceedings. I already knew Ms. Campbell and since we were good friends I was ready to make a deal with her. Preparation is key to a successful negotiation and in doing so, immediately I started considering the cost and benefits to be derived from the negotiation. I even deliberated going to another bookshop but when I considered the cost of paying taxi fare and the fact that the book may not be in stock at that particular time and that would be waste of precious time and money. I also had to do a self-assessment as to what I want and my alternative to reaching a solution. Even though the best option proved to be buying the used book, there were still some uncertainties in relation to the offered price.

After completing the investigation of the cost of the book, it was found that the book would have amounted to $4,055. Ms. Campbell offered to sell her Industrial Relations for $4,000 just $55 less than the original cost but I still considered it expensive for a second hand book. After I have completed my assessment, I set my target point to $3,750. (Thompson