I recently received an invite to an upcoming 30-minute webinar titled “These 3 Practices Will Boost Your Career: The power of data-driven negotiating.”
In this live webinar, Rod Sherkin will describe three Procurement Practices that will drive down purchase costs; strengthen your supply chain; and advance your career by quantifying the value you create.
The two immediate thoughts that came to my mind – and the reason I am attending were:
- Can great tech overcome poor communication and collaboration within a company?
- IACCM’s Cummins Hits One Out of the Park Regarding Dishonesty at the Top!
As you read the above posts, you will see that my definition of a good negotiation is not:
- About getting the lowest price, but the fairest price
- A zero-sum game where there are winners and losers, but mutual benefit
- About techniques or tricks, it is about subject and situational knowledge and preparation
- About knowing how to play your cards close to your vest, but transparency, communication, and collaboration
Knowledge Is Power!
The start of a successful negotiation begins well before you come to the negotiating table. It starts with doing your homework, asking questions, seeing the big horizon beyond the myopic scope of stakeholder self-interests. In this regard, I hope that Rod Sherkin will share one of his many storys about his time at Pillsbury, and in particular the Green Giant can story.
Turning a black diamond slope green
A Case In Point
“Like 99% of the time it’s, I raised the price because my labor’s up. I raised the price because energy’s up. I raised the price because steel’s up or plastic resin’s up. You take whatever they say, put it into this really simple modeling. It takes literally 60 seconds to build a model and you push back and you’ll find that almost always the model will say, will show a price today. Let’s say you’re paying a buck for a bolt and the supplier says, I want a dollar two.
You run the model and say, wait a second, steel’s actually down 7%. It should be 94 cents or 95 cents. You show the actual stack bar chart. It’s a colorful model. It’s very easy to read. You embed it in an email. That’s part of our system. You send it to the supplier. There’s usually a sales rep and say, geez, I don’t quite understand this. Am I missing something? Of course you’re not. So the sales rep takes it to his boss and eventually goes up the ladder until somebody in finance, somebody knows somewhere that it’s all true.” – Rod Sherkin
30
Procurement Insights
What makes a procurement professional a good negotiator?
Posted on November 28, 2024
0
I recently received an invite to an upcoming 30-minute webinar titled “These 3 Practices Will Boost Your Career: The power of data-driven negotiating.”
In this live webinar, Rod Sherkin will describe three Procurement Practices that will drive down purchase costs; strengthen your supply chain; and advance your career by quantifying the value you create.
The two immediate thoughts that came to my mind – and the reason I am attending were:
As you read the above posts, you will see that my definition of a good negotiation is not:
Knowledge Is Power!
The start of a successful negotiation begins well before you come to the negotiating table. It starts with doing your homework, asking questions, seeing the big horizon beyond the myopic scope of stakeholder self-interests. In this regard, I hope that Rod Sherkin will share one of his many storys about his time at Pillsbury, and in particular the Green Giant can story.
Turning a black diamond slope green
A Case In Point
“Like 99% of the time it’s, I raised the price because my labor’s up. I raised the price because energy’s up. I raised the price because steel’s up or plastic resin’s up. You take whatever they say, put it into this really simple modeling. It takes literally 60 seconds to build a model and you push back and you’ll find that almost always the model will say, will show a price today. Let’s say you’re paying a buck for a bolt and the supplier says, I want a dollar two.
You run the model and say, wait a second, steel’s actually down 7%. It should be 94 cents or 95 cents. You show the actual stack bar chart. It’s a colorful model. It’s very easy to read. You embed it in an email. That’s part of our system. You send it to the supplier. There’s usually a sales rep and say, geez, I don’t quite understand this. Am I missing something? Of course you’re not. So the sales rep takes it to his boss and eventually goes up the ladder until somebody in finance, somebody knows somewhere that it’s all true.” – Rod Sherkin
30
Share this:
Related