Haggling is not negotiating. I repeat, haggling is not negotiating. You are just “meeting in the middle.”

I remember watching an episode of the BBC’s “The Apprentice” in which the task was to buy a list of items in London. The would-be apprentice, Jim, went to a butcher to buy a steak. It was a classic haggle. The butcher started high and Jim started low. They ultimately met in the middle.

This back and forth is haggling, which is a valid method of resolving a conflict. But other ways to resolve a conflict exist, including negotiation. The difference is that haggling is just about the price, and largely the outcome depends on who starts the highest or lowest. But negotiation is about trading variables and takes more skill, which makes it an art rather than a blunt instrument.

Learning the art of negotiation can be done with a few simple, yet effective tools.

Tool 1: The Up-and-Over

As a child, my family lived in a modest three-bedroom house in Laindon, Essex. It had one of those garages at the front of the house but you couldn’t get to the garage through the house even though it was integrated into the building. You could only get to it through the big up-and-over door.

“Up and over” is also a negotiating tool to use when you want to counter propose, which means to reject an offer and replace it with one that suits you better.

Let’s say you are selling your car. After looking the car up and down and kicking the tires, the buyer says, “Would you take $4,500 instead?” Typically, you’d haggle and say, “No, but I would accept $5,000,” and on the haggle goes until you meet in the middle. In a negotiation, you might say, “If you can buy the other car I am selling too, I could move on the price.” “Another car?” the buyer replies. “I don’t want another car. That’s silly.”

SIG University Certified Supplier Management Professional (CSMP) program graduate Adrienne Westerfield outlines how supplier governance programs and relationships are extremely beneficial to all stakeholders involved and can help drive business success.

What is a governance program? During the SIG University Certified Supplier Management Professional (CSMP) program, while learning unfamiliar governance terminology, I realized I had been involved with creating and establishing various types of governance throughout my career. Supplier governance is a relationship or framework that is mutually agreed upon. Both the company and the supplier benefit from this relationship. The framework can be at a corporate, business unit or contract level depending on the needs and value sought by both parties.

If it is an established relationship that has never been formalized, adding governance will ensure contract compliance. It will mitigate risks for both parties while making sure the objectives of the relationship are met. Over time, the goals for each company may change so that the structure can be re-evaluated accordingly and adjustments made to align with a new direction or specific initiatives. A more structured governance framework will also define the roles and responsibilities for teams, departments and individuals at each company, which will mitigate the risk of any tasks remaining incomplete or done incorrectly.

As we close out the first half of 2021, we prepare for the future of procurement with a host of exciting industry research and webinars to make your role easier.

July CPO & Executive Virtual Series

SIG's CPO & Executive Virtual Series is an opportunity for the most senior procurement executives to gather with their peers in an interactive virtual environment to discuss their most pressing issues. On July 21, A panel of experts from Everest Group will explore maximizing savings and innovation from IT and BPO Service Providers, followed by topic-based discussions on contracting models and cost savings in 2021. 

Join us for this executive-level conversation with actionable takeaways.

Power Hour Webinars

Elevating The Role of Sourcing and Procurement

As a 40-year Procurement leader, Steve Kesinger knows a thing or two about the daily struggles of procurement departments. The former Nordstrom Chief Procurement Officer and LogicSource Procurement Council member has hands-on experience managing large, complex teams responsible for managing over $2B+ in annual spend, resulting in a unique perspective on what Procurement teams need to succeed.

In this session, Steve will be joined by LogicSource Managing Partner, Sam Vail, and Sourcing Industry Group President and CEO, Dawn Tiura, to share the insights he has harvested from his decades of experience both as a CPO and also in his current advisory role helping early-stage technology companies build business models that will resonate with Fortune 1000 procurement leaders.

Procurement leader Canda Rozier and senior sourcing veteran Lawrence Kane joined the Sourcing Industry Landscape Podcast to discuss the new age of intelligent automation, based on what they learned in SIG University’s Certified Intelligent Automation Professional (CIAP) program. They outline how intelligent automation can be a powerful tool to promote an organization’s growth and prosperity, and how – when implemented correctly – it can be targeted to improve areas holding back the enterprise.

What is a simple definition of intelligent automation?

Canda Rozier: I think intelligent automation is a fully holistic approach for business transformation that lets companies start to analyze data, provide analytics on the data and deliver digital solutions to optimize business processes and tasks. I think one of the things that has really struck me as I've learned more about and become engaged with intelligent automation is that it's as important to understand what it's not as to understand what it is.

 A lot of intelligent automation projects fail or don’t provide results – why?

Lawrence Kane: It's not a panacea, and it really needs to be implemented systemically because it's a program. It shouldn't be a one-off, because you have to look at your tools and processes and how the enterprise creates value and understand where are the places that you want to go and automate. Where are the places you want to stop doing things, where are the areas that you need to change doing something, right?

Your employees helped you navigate a historical disruption. Now they deserve your investment in their personal and professional development.

Everyone wants to “get back to normal.” I am anxious to safely hug friends and family, talk without the muffling of a mask, enjoy a meal in a restaurant, and travel abroad again. While the saying get back to normal is mostly a turn of phrase, going back to normal in the professional world is impossible.

Procurement professionals are constantly preparing for localized Black Swan events, like natural disasters, geopolitical conflicts, cybercrimes and such. But the impact of COVID is unique in its size and scope. What started as an epidemic in late 2019 quickly spread into a pandemic, consuming the entirety of 2020, and it’s still rearing its ugly head in the world.

Leaders in all sectors need to realize that the world as we know it has changed, and your employees are holding company leadership accountable. If you want to keep the talent you have and be an employer of choice to attract new talent, it’s vital to stop, listen, and learn from the people who help make your business successful.

Here are my recommendations to build a more inclusive, resilient, and agile workforce as we look ahead.

Back to the Office ... or Not

Now that vaccines are making inroads and people can safely congregate again, some look forward to going back to the office full time. After a year of working from home, others don’t want a full-time return to the office.

Before COVID, there was in many companies a conservative attitude about working from home. It was accepted on occasion but not wholly embraced. At Scanmarket, we will not return to a situation where people have to be at the office five days a week. Instead, we will pivot to a hybrid, part-time office model.