International Negotiations

Extension activity

Trainees read the commentary on page 71 to identify six options when you appear to 

have no BATNA. They should then discuss which of these options are most and least 

suitable for their own business situation. They should also find four useful phrases in the 

commentary, and again discuss which of them they could use in their own negotiations.

Answers

The six options are:

1  Redesign your product not to require the component you currently need.

2  Design a similar component yourself.

3  Acquire your supplier.

4  Go to your competitors and agree with them that none of you will buy your supplier’s 

component until they price it more reasonably. Note that this may not be legal in 

many countries, as the commentary on page 71 points out.

5  Bluff – simply pretend you do have a BATNA.

6  Create value – introduce new issues into the negotiation to give you more influence or 

‘leverage’.

Useful phrases

1  We don’t have to do a deal with you – we have other options.

2  OK, what we want to know is: can you offer us what we want? I have to tell you some 

of your competitors have already said they can. But we’ve done business before. We 

wanted to give you your chance.

3  We’d really like to reach a deal with you today, but, of course, if we have to, there are 

other people we could speak to.

4  OK, I suggest you look elsewhere for a better deal.