The Basic of International Business Negotiation Success

Learning to negotiate is an important part of your skills as an international business person, although it is paradoxically not possible to negotiate effectively if you do not also possess quite a number of other “soft skills”. Most of all, international business negotiation with other companies cannot succeed if they do not understand the basic structure of business negotiation very well.

At first, I want to ask two questions. First one is “What is negotiation?” Here is the explanation that Negotiation is a mean of dealing with human relationship and resolving conflicts. The second one is “What is business negotiation?” Here is the explanation that Business Negotiation is a bargaining situation in which two or more players have a common interest to cooperate, but at the same time have conflicting interests over exactly how to share. In other words, “Negotiation” takes place only between people who have the same interest.

Then, I will introduce some information about the basic structure of business negotiation. Above all, when you start to do something, you must know the purpose of your action. As for the international business negotiation, you must know needs-what people really want. There are two meanings about the needs-what. First, you have to know what you really want, why and how badly you want or need it, and at what point you’re willing to walk away without getting it. Second, you have got to know what the other party wants and why it’s important to them. This is vital information if you’re ready to craft some creative resolution to satisfy everybody. Also, how much do they need or want? What would make them really happy? When you ask them what they want, some are going to be upfront with you; others are going to be guarded and perhaps afraid that you’ve got some secret agenda to trick them. Basic human needs underlie all negotiation. So, if you understand the “need”, you can shape your offer to it most precisely. For example, if a company wants to buy a part of share from another company, they should not only know what themselves need but also the need of the other side. However, in reality, it is difficult to discover what the particular needs are in each case. Asking “why?” is helpless. Because people themselves often have not thought about it, or they have reasons to be secretive.

Secondly, on the one hand, both sides should have mutual understanding and become long-term friends. On the other hand, they should know the positional-what people ask for or demand. As we all know that different people have different demand because of their positional differences. Therefore, negotiators rarely or never begin a negotiation talking about why they individually want something. Typically, they begin talking about what their company wants, and how much they are prepared to pay. In addition, most negotiators do not think much beyond the price and the deal that they want.

In order to achieve