A client team member (Category Manager) was embarking on negotiations with a strategic supplier. It was a business requirement, where the business had already agreed its requirements with the supplier and brough in procurement to finalize the T&Cs. It was a breach of the engagement methodology but, to ensure that the business requirement was met on time, Procurement decided to step in and support as the supplier’s proposal was well over the budget available. The client team Category Manager was a relative newcomer to Procurement and did not have enough experience under his belt and due to the volume of activity, the management team could not spare enough time to support him to execute.
To enable the Category Manager, achieve his objectives,
- we helped him structure his situation analysis and validate and test his understanding and assumptions he was making around the challenge at hand
- through utilizing NLP techniques, we helped him to understand his limiting beliefs to navigate the situation
- we helped him to structure his negotiations and rehearsed delivery and sat in on his negotiations to coach him through the conversations
- we also enabled him to structure and navigate the conversations with his stakeholder to drive value given the situation
With a renewed confidence and knowledge of structuring conversations and negotiations and address his limiting beliefs, the category manager was able to
- execute his negotiations confidently with the supplier and senior executives at his supplier’s organisation
- drive for a 15% cost reduction to bring the new scope that his stakeholder required to be within the budget
- ensured compliance to contract and a refresh of the current rate card for a period of 2 years
- above all he gained a lot of confidence in himself, having a different mindset and techniques to address challenging conversations, and this enabled him to drive similar initiatives in the year
