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Sarah Talley and Wal-Mart Essay

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1) Was this a Distributive or Integrative negotiation?- was it the optimum approach and why or why not. Sarah Talley and Wal-Mart are in a distributive negotiation as they only haggle about the price for 4th of July Watermelons (Lewicki, Saunders& Barry 2011). Rather than giving a “why” Wal-Mart persists with the position that the price is “too high” (Sebenius & Knebel 2006). In price-only negotiations only one party can win. Furthermore, there is a huge power difference due to Wal-Mart’s high position of strength which is based on their size (Lewicki et al. 2011). In the end these negotiations ended with Wal-Mart having to pay higher prices and with Frey Farm selling less volume at lower profits as they became a co-managed …show more content…

Thinking outside the box helps here. She should focus on a BATNA like talking to other Wal-Mart executives and offering them a creative solution like accepting the price in exchange becoming a co-managed supplier. Having creative solutions for a mutual beneficial outcome might increase your perceived power as well. 4) Do you believe Sarah did enough preparation and research for the negotiation?-Is there any additional preparation she could have done that would have substantially improved her outcome? If so, what? Sarah obviously researched Wal-Mart’s low price strategy before starting business with them: “Sarah Talley recognized […] a number of negotiation challenges.” (Sebenius& Knebel 2006, p. 2). She also had the goal of becoming a co-managed supplier but her objectives behind the 4th July negotiations are not clear. Also, she failed to research the negotiation tactics employed by Wal-Mart’s new regional contact person specifically. Furthermore, Sarah did not do her homework on Wal-Mart’s criteria for becoming a co-managed supplier. She should have developed clear BATNA’s to increase Frey Farm’s power. Furthermore she should have matched her goal of becoming a co-managed supplier with a valid strategy. At the time of difficult price negotiations it might be better to wait until a better time (e.g. when you know the new regional buyer better). 5) How would you have done this negotiation differently? Please cite Negotiations best practices that you would

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