China purchasing managers are negotiating successfully for better deal terms. The lucky ones are going for more advantageous terms in future negotiations — but a few are learning to give bad news about deals that were negotiated in the past.
Right now, the power balance is in your favor. Smart purchasing managers, however, will take [...]
Category Archives: Purchasing/Procurement
China Purchasing Managers – Renegotiating Deal Terms in a Recession
December 3, 2008 – 3:01 am
Purchasing Managers in China: Separate Interests from Positions
December 1, 2008 – 12:57 am
Go to ChineseNegotiation.com and read about the difference between position-based negotiation and interest-based negotiation.
Simply stated, position-based negotiation is about tactics and relative power base. It is standard win-lose, competitive negotiation. Interest-based negotiation is about your own long-term strategic goals – and how to best match them with the goals of your partner. This [...]
Procurement and Purchasing Departments in China: Now is the time for Internal Negotiations!
November 20, 2008 – 5:45 am
Purchasing managers in China seem to have an easy job these days – everyone wants to sell and there are very few buyers. That seems to give Chinese purchasers a huge advantage. The fact is it makes your life much easier with one counter-party – the seller. But it makes your life very dangerous and [...]
Chinese Purchasers and 3 Types of Western Suppliers
November 18, 2008 – 2:16 am
Purchasing managers in China can expect to meet up with 3 kinds of overseas suppliers. Some know China well and have good experience operating here. Others are new to China, and don’t know much about doing business here – but they know it. This is a great opportunity for building a solid relationship and securing [...]
China Negotiation for Purchasing Managers – Special Situations
November 6, 2008 – 3:35 am
Buyers in China — particularly Purchasing Managers for large international businesses — are already encountering a special negotiating situation which I call, “whose problem is it”. That’s when your counter-party tries to make his weakness your problem.
You’ll hear it when someone owes you money or a supplier is trying to defend his price (or other [...]
China Negotiating Basics – Setting LIM (Like, Intend, Must) priorities
November 3, 2008 – 3:31 am
Chinese negotiators usually have a pretty good idea about what they want from a business negotiation. Just make sure you don’t put yourself at a disadvantage by A) not having a systematic set of priorities, and B) keeping those priorities too secret for too long. The basic framework for setting negotiation priorities is the LIM. [...]
China purchasing departments need key relationships with their key suppliers
October 17, 2008 – 2:03 am
I remember sitting with a group of purchasing consultants talking about the problem their clients were facing. One purchasing manager told that his standing instructions to were to negotiate a 10% price decrease for the same parts and materials EVERY year. There are only 2 ways to sustain that trend:
1) Find new suppliers each year [...]
