Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals

for

Purchasing Professionals

Why purchasing professionals need negotiating training.

Purchasing's contribution to the success or failure of the organization has never been greater, and negotiation has never played a greater role in purchasing. Today, with the global economy marked by rising competition, obsessive cost-consciousness, and dwindling margins, a few percentage points won or lost in negotiating are critical. Tomorrow, those same few percentage points will be decisive.

The future of every organization will be increasingly influenced by the negotiating skills of its buyers. Negotiate to Win® for Purchasing Professionals guarantees that those skills will be nothing less than exceptional. In Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals, Common Ground applies Negotiate to Win—our proven, award-winning flagship program—to the trends, practices, and technological innovations of today's fast-paced purchasing environment. Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals is the ultimate buyer's negotiating course, a unique combination of results-focused practicality, outstanding training materials, and world-class negotiator-instructors. Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals has helped thousands become gifted negotiators. Shouldn't your buyers have same advantage?

Who Should Attend Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals?

Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals is intended for both new and experienced purchasing and supply management professionals, personnel who interface with purchasers or suppliers, sourcing team members, cost analysts, engineers, and production, inventory control, transportation, distribution, and quality professionals. Team attendance is encouraged. Negotiate to Win® is not a prerequisite.

Methodology

Like Negotiate to Win, Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals creates a "high-immersion" training environment for maximum participation and learning. Instructional methods include multimedia, lecture, group discussion, diagnostic tests and evaluations, simulations, and other interactive techniques. During the program, students are regularly challenged to demonstrate what they've learned through generic and customized case study simulations.

Session Length

Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals is typically a two-day program. However, program length can be adjusted to fit your requirements—from under one hour to two or more days.

Instructors

Common Ground's experienced and internationally-renowned facilitators bring an abundance of practical and creative solutions to any training situation. Please click here for information about our instructors.

Tailoring

Many firms promise tailored programs but deliver the same tired old materials. Common Ground is different. When we say tailored, we mean it. We work with you to ensure that Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals thoroughly and specifically addresses your organization's priorities and concerns. We interview your people and (confidentially, of course) we learn your business—who you are, what you do, how you do it, where your industry stands and where you stand in your industry, what your short- and long-term objectives are, what circumstances your negotiators face, and who your target audience will be. With this information in hand, we prepare unique training materials for you.

Tailored case studies—lifelike scenarios that students can instantly relate to—are the best way to clarify, validate, and reinforce classroom concepts, and make them immediately transferable to the workplace. Common Ground is unsurpassed when it comes to the creation of unique, client-specific exercises. At no additional charge, we work in partnership with you to develop convincingly realistic scenarios that will excite and inform your attendees. Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals is flexibly designed to complement and reinforce your organization's current purchasing training.

Highlights of Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals

The central role of negotiations in purchasing

Choosing between competitive bidding and negotiating

Alternatives to negotiating for small-dollar-value purchases

Handling the single bid/single source situation

Global sourcing; trade and import issues; "Incoterms"

Legal issues in purchasing; common negotiable contract provisions; the "Battle of the Forms"; ownership of intellectual property; contract traps and hidden price escalators, "business flexibility" terms and conditions; clauses for price protection

Preparation and planning; defining interests and issues; information gathering

Cost/price analysis techniques and other analytical tools

Creative paths to reducing cost; e-commerce; outsourcing; benchmarking; value chain management; cycle time reduction; long-term contracts

Conducting the actual negotiation; finalizing agreements

International and cross-cultural negotiating

Post-negotiation issues; monitoring performance; characteristics, measurements and metrics of successfully implemented agreements

Tips for successful vendor relationships; strategic alliances; process reengineering; supplier certification; strategic cost containment; incentivizing on-time performance and quality improvement

Preparing for subsequent negotiations

How often should you ask for lower prices?

Anticipating a supplier's financial failure

E-commerce, e-business, and e-procurement

Confidentiality

In all aspects of their work with Common Ground, clients are assured of complete confidentiality. Our commitment to discretion and privacy encourages clients to give us access to the information we need to customize Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals for maximum participation and learning. Upon request, Common Ground will be pleased to formalize this promise with a Nondisclosure Agreement.

Participant Materials

Participants receive a variety of valuable in-class and take-home handouts and tools, including checklists, case studies, samples, guides, a pocket reference card, and a personal action planner. All participants who do not already have one receive a copy of the outstanding Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals Manual, a practical negotiation reference they will continue to use long after the workshop.

On-Site Requirements

You provide the training facility, an LCD projector, a screen, a flip chart and markers, and above all, enthusiastic attendees who sincerely want to improve their negotiating skills! Optional items such as sign-in sheets, evaluation forms, writing materials, name cards and badges, and diplomas are supplied by clients.

Guarantee

Our guarantee is very straightforward. We think it says a lot about the effectiveness of Common Ground training. We guarantee that within two weeks after Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals, you'll recover the price of the session through better negotiating. If not, we'll refund your money.

Detailed Information

For further information about Negotiate to Win for Purchasing Professionals, including a course outline, agenda, and proposal, please click the "Tell Me More" link.

Tell Me More