Maximise the value of your negotiations
Introduction
A method for consistent negotiation success combining strategy, negotiation and performance principles.
Creating new power and mutual interest to deliver exceptional results across sectors and industries taking best practice etc.
“The deal was dead really, but somehow pulled back. A masterpiece of negotiation. Superb performance, approaching astounding”
Valey Kamalov, Senior Staff Engineer
Google
Approach
“Strategy is the art of creating power” Sir Lawrence Freedman
Negotiation approaches often focus on tactics. Just getting a bit more. Real strategy, and creating real power, are absent.
Alongside power both understanding and shaping others’ interests. Moving even irrational actors to effective negotiation.
CSN creates power and interest to transform the dynamics of a negotiation. This transforms its opportunities and outcomes.
“In this most challenging of negotiation settings, the approach was both highly practical and highly impactful”
Anaide Nahikian, Programme Lead
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Method
Short and high-impact engagements
Support from strategy to execution
Current and upcoming negotiations
Impact
Close richer partnership deals
Turnaround failing negotiations
Align conflicting interests
Elevate your skills and capacity
“The deal tripled in value. Over a year on, the approach continues to be pivotal to our partnership success”
Sophie Langman,
Partnerships Director
Cancer Research UK
Unlocking full negotiation potential to leave lasting value
Partnerships & Deals
Build richer future partnerships and substantially increase current deal values
Approach
5-stage short process for new partnerships
Covers selection, preparation and execution
3-stage short process to increase live deals
Deep focus on organization’s specific power
Impact
High value and scalable partnership closed
Terms transformed for current negotiation
Learnings and approach carried on to future
“Paul leveraged technology advances to create a new kind of deal structure. It scaled globally, becoming among our most complex and high value partnerships.”
Dr. Vijay Vusirikala, Director,
Network Architecture and Engineering,
Google
Case Studies
-
Challenge: A global technology company’s power counted for little when trying to build a ground-breaking partnership with a much smaller firm. Five years passed without progress. At stake was the ability to scale their service in days instead of months and vast savings.
Approach: They wrongly thought they had the power. Value had to be created. A new deal structure was created, exploiting advances in technology, to triple its value to the partner.
Result: The partnership closed. The model scaled the tech company’s service by 25 times. Its global rollout saved them $400mn, and became an open standard saving the industry $1bn.
-
Challenge: A start-up received partnership interest from their sector’s global leader. A quick, high value deal would forge their future, but a slow and low-value one could end it. Initial terms confirmed their worst fears.
Approach: They changed the global leader’s mindset from tactical deal to partnership by understanding their real interests, and creating a vision to match it. A high-value proposition followed with pressure moved to the global leader to close.
Result: Power had shifted, and they negotiated as partners. A 3-page draft became a 40-page deal but still closed in 8 weeks. It brought credibility and several million to self-fund growth.
“New possibilities for the deal, unrealistic, even outrageous, were achieved by creating more value for both sides. The deal set the company alive."
Chris Moore, Managing Director,
SLC
Turnarounds
Turning around and closing failing and stalling negotiations
Approach
Getting to the heart of the real problem
Retaking control of process in four steps
Beyond resetting to deeper relationship
Impact
Breathe new life and momentum to close
Create environment for higher value deal
“We were devastated. We assumed we had no power. The turnaround was miraculous, the best experience of my career”
Joanna Merton,
Senior Partnerships Manager,
Cancer Research UK
Case Studies
-
Challenge: A large charity’s partnership with a global conglomerate, approaching signature after 12 months, was cancelled for no reason. 18% of the charity’s divisional income would be lost; they were devastated.
Approach: The charity team first needed to drain their emotion. Then an analysis of the deal to identify and create power to revive it. Several areas of power were found, and a strategy quickly built to leverage them, delivered largely through two carefully drafted messages.
Result: Within two weeks the FTSE company completely reversed their decision. The deal was revived. The charity recaptured several million pounds and reset the partnership.
-
Challenge: A Silicon Valley giant sought a new shared-ownership infrastructure model saving them $55mn. Their largest supplier was the obvious choice, but it kept stalling due to the supplier fearing its complexity and the giant entering their market.
Approach: Complex issues were broken down into separate negotiation problems and solved jointly. These ‘mini-wins’ built momentum, but not trust, halting the deal. Turning the problem into an opportunity for transparency, control and revenue saved it.
Result: The relationship had moved from a supplier to partner. The new infrastructure model brought the giant $55mn in savings and a far more robust platform.
“He transformed our toughest challenge into an elegant framework deepening collaboration and trust. The resulting deal was ground-breaking for the company and industry”
Mike Galvin, Vice President
Tata Communications
Training
Combining bespoke negotiation models and tools with existing ones
Approach
Practical course material building to a curriculum
Modified for experience and negotiation context
Case studies deepening assimilation of concepts
Impact
Applied to participants’ past and present deals
Learning and skills with bottom-line results
“It brought a deep understanding of our power and how to convert it into leverage. We have become more focused, strategic and bold with our partnerships”
Sophie Langman,
Partnerships Director
Cancer Research UK
Case Studies
-
Challenge: A mid-sized health organization was concluding a key deal with a multinational. It opened up 80 new countries, but significantly undervalued them. After nine months they were resigned to accepting it to extend reach.
Approach: Our ‘ideal proposition’ programme analysed the history of the negotiation, and other related ones. We took the learning and selected one additional elements to add substantial new value. This was delivered in a hastily arranged additional meeting.
Result: An hour after the meeting the multinational called. They wanted to triple the deal value with the new elements. The partnership brought all the revenue and 80 territories.
-
Challenge: A gaming industry start-up was struggling with its first major negotiation. Its preferred platform provider wouldn’t move from standard terms. After three months without progress, they had an expensive and rigid deal.
Approach: Our workshop analysed both the start-up’s power and the platform provider’s interest. We then looked at how the start-up could build both narratives to position themselves differently, and a new negotiation process of several stages.
Result: Within 2 weeks the platform provider offered a new deal with 45% lower costs. The start-up also got additional terms providing commercial protection from their competition.
“We got all the terms we wanted, and it added tremendous value to the company. The negotiation approach has been successfully applied to other larger deals”
Christian Facey, CEO
Audiomob
Security
Political and humanitarian negotiations to find common ground
Approach
Designing tailored support and interventions
Creating leverage to negotiate more equally
Strategies and narratives to align interests
Impact
Finding pathways to constructive dialogue
Moving parties toward joint problem solving
“The participants, all Ukranian, gave the humanitarian frontline negotiation course 90% approval. An unbelievable scoring. It was knocked out of the park”
Rodger le Grand,
Instructional Designer,
Harvard
Case Studies
-
Challenge: The sales and marketing groups of a conglomerate were engaged in a debilitating territorial dispute, fighting between and amongst themselves. Meanwhile their revenue had slumped.
Approach: The heart of the issue wasn’t personalities, it was agendas. We went to the top, creating and articulating the SVP’s fundamental objectives, and shared it with the team. Positions began to move to a negotiation based on shared interests.
Result: This shared purpose changed the context for everyone. All that mattered was one team, winning. This they did, building a plan that brought $50mns in additional revenue.
-
Challenge: A multi-billion dollar business mining unit’s revenue was in terminal decline, with sale or closure inevitable. Any hope lay through market expansion and overcoming an engineering challenge to extend an asset’s life.
Approach: The group lacked common purpose and belief. They honestly challenged each other’s views, and started looking to the future, building an ambitious four-pillar strategy to turn fortunes around. Healthy negotiations addressed revenue growth and solving the engineering problem.
Result: They were a different team, totally committed and sharing the strategy. Expansion into Asia, and successfully extending the asset, alone brought $300mn securing its future.
“A powerful combination of strategic thinking, and skilled negotiation, which cuts straight to the heart of a problem. We immediately applied innovative tools to our mediation work on the ground.”
Oliver Mcternan, Director
Forward Thinking
