Unit 6 STRATEGY

Text 1. Read and translate the text consulting the dictionary if necessary

A win/lose strategy
I have no doubt that there is a sincere intention to engage on a solution based principle it just seems that this is much easier said than done where the rubber hits the road. A lot of the time companies' stated intentions to engage on a win/win based principle is similar to the new year's resolutions so many of us make every year. There is scant chance of us achieving our resolutions without putting in place a supporting plan and taking action to achieve our goals.
Organisations and individuals should recognise that collaborative negotiation demands the investment of significant resources. In order for us to be truly collaborative, we have to spend much time getting to know each other. In a commercial context, this plainly does not make sense in some cases. Consider the purchase of a pure commodity such as paper for a small or medium sized organisation - if there are no value added services presented or required, it would be sub optimal to pursue a collaborative relationship with the provider of such a commodity.
It would make more sense to pursue a competitive approach to the procurement of paper than a collaborative or even compromising approach. In practise, many organisations would approach the purchase of paper or stationery in a way where they would request multiple quotations and award the business to the lowest bidder. As a matter of fact, in some cases no negotiation at all would take place.
An interesting note here is that this does not mean that the paper supplier has lost as a result of this transaction - they have won the order, but the telling thing is that we were not really interested in their interests at all; we were only focused on our desired objectives.
The flip side of this example is that if you are selling commodity type products, you have to realise that before you will be in a position to negotiate, you must create for yourself a base to do this from - hence the move towards providing solutions.

Ex. 1. Insert the appropriate word.

1. It took me over 5 hours of negotiation for the parties to come to a (bottom-line, hostility, consensus)

2. We would have more (haggling, leverage, concession) if we had some more recent statistics to use.

3. It was (flexible, mutual, victorious) decision to settle our differences out of court.

4. I wasn’t expecting our opponents to (amplify, yield, concede) so quickly.

5. When I (dominated, confronted, entitled) the client’s promise they agreed to honour it.

6. One (bargain, tactic, tension) that always works is to ask your counterpart to speak first.

7. We were (haggling, disputing, conflicting) over prices all afternoon.

8. They were (hostile, receptive, tense) to our proposals until we made our last demand.

9. If that is your only (pressure, objective, cooperation) I would be happy to concede.

10. Within ten minutes the negotiations had already ended in a (deadlock, bottom-line, counterpart).

Text 2. Read the text and be ready for a comprehension checkup.

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