As anyone with any experience of it will tell you, purchasing is partly an art and partly a science. While purchasing negotiation may seem a little intimidating at first, the most important thing to remember is that it's something anyone can learn. Although there are buyers who make the process look like magic, they're able to do so only because they have so much experience. As long as you're willing to practice negotiation with suppliers regularly, actively engaging in the process, it will likely take you less time than you expect to become very skilled at it.
As mentioned above, a big part of purchasing negotiation success is practice. Since there are a wide range of circumstances that can crop up during this process, it will take time for you to become fully familiar with everything you may encounter.
In addition to practice, there is one other component that can take you a very long way. That component is preparation.
The reason that preparation can have such a big impact on the outcome of any purchasing negotiation is because knowledge really is power. By entering into negotiations with all the relevant information to hand or committed to memory, buyers can put themselves in the driver's seat throughout the negotiations.
Setting the Right Expectations for Different Suppliers
One of the most common mistakes that people make in purchasing negotiations is to take the exact same approach with every supplier. The simple reason why a blanket approach doesn't work is because your business doesn't have the exact same relationship with all of its suppliers. By understanding well the dynamics of the relationship with each individual supplier, you'll be better able to craft the right approach to your negotiations with them.
In addition to practice, there is one other component that can take you a very long way. That component is preparation.
The reason that preparation can have such a big impact on the outcome of any purchasing negotiation is because knowledge really is power. By entering into negotiations with all the relevant information to hand or committed to memory, buyers can put themselves in the driver's seat throughout the negotiations.
Setting the Right Expectations for Different Suppliers
One of the most common mistakes that people make in purchasing negotiations is to take the exact same approach with every supplier. The simple reason why a blanket approach doesn't work is because your business doesn't have the exact same relationship with all of its suppliers. By understanding well the dynamics of the relationship with each individual supplier, you'll be better able to craft the right approach to your negotiations with them.
Lose–Lose vs. Win–Win
While entire books have been written on how to negotiate with suppliers, the most common approaches boil down into two basic categories. With lose–lose negotiating, all the buyer cares about is bringing the price down as much as possible. In doing so, the buyer may only be following the priorities set by, for example, the project manager. Although saving money may sound like a win, the reason that's not necessarily the case is that it often comes at the expense of things, such as delivery times or product quality.
Although win–win is the less common form of negotiating, it's the one that buyers should strive for. While this approach still makes it possible to save money, negotiations are handled in such a way as to ensure that other requirements, like quality and delivery, are properly considered and resolved in the best possible manner.
Since becoming really good at purchasing negotiations takes practice and time, you may be looking for a way to make more of your time available, in order to focus on this very valuable activity.
While entire books have been written on how to negotiate with suppliers, the most common approaches boil down into two basic categories. With lose–lose negotiating, all the buyer cares about is bringing the price down as much as possible. In doing so, the buyer may only be following the priorities set by, for example, the project manager. Although saving money may sound like a win, the reason that's not necessarily the case is that it often comes at the expense of things, such as delivery times or product quality.
Although win–win is the less common form of negotiating, it's the one that buyers should strive for. While this approach still makes it possible to save money, negotiations are handled in such a way as to ensure that other requirements, like quality and delivery, are properly considered and resolved in the best possible manner.
Since becoming really good at purchasing negotiations takes practice and time, you may be looking for a way to make more of your time available, in order to focus on this very valuable activity.