Balance the power
In negotiation with suppliers after the Covid-19

Mehrzad Manuel Ferdows
3 min readJan 15, 2022

--

Effective collaborative relationships can help companies build strong internal and external links to achieve tremendous success in a world where communication is paramount. On the other hand, the commerce laws underwent many changes during the spread of the Coronavirus and will continue to do so. In many industries, the balance of power has shifted from buyers to suppliers, so it’s essential to concentrate on negotiation techniques and adhere to the basic principles of negotiating with suppliers to redefine the relationship with a powerful.

Evaluation
Depending on the responsibilities of the suppliers, criteria for evaluating each supplier are obtained. It would be best to consider these criteria in its stage according to the steps of selling the product to the company. If you are a purchaser of a company, your important task is to ensure the credibility of the suppliers. This confidence depends on building strong relationships with suppliers. You will contact the sales manager of the supplier you choose to find out all the supplier’s potential. Before entering the contract phase, you carefully evaluate and evaluate their capabilities. This process usually takes place during interviews and meetings with relevant managers. The seller’s website is also an essential source for measuring metrics such as warranty and support quality, organizational structure, and finance if any.

You can make a list of suppliers of goods or services for yourself and make a score for each of the suppliers based on the collected information. It is best to set the table with each criterion separately in its columns. Give each one a score below each standard, and in the last column, get the average of the total scores. Use these scores when deciding to choose the right supplier. When rejecting or accepting each and explaining your reasons to the organization’s managers, this table can be a determinant and a seal of approval on your defenses against the supplier you want.

Information
Like the table in the previous section, design another table for yourself that includes items done by the seller in each column. Each row belongs to one of the vendors. Consider each of these columns and write down how they behave in your table; the price of the goods, the time of delivery, and anything that can be measured slightly. Registering these numbers and maintaining this list will help the organization purchase.

Another essential thing to keep in mind is to keep suppliers informed before entering the contract stage. Product suppliers provide your information through catalogs, brochures, or online methods such as email and the website to introduce themselves to you. This information must be archived and preserved. By doing this, you have documented all your activities, and you can refer to these documents whenever needed. Gather all this information together and keep it in the sellers’ file.

Obligation
The most crucial part of any negotiation is to guess what the other party needs and which kind of offers could be expected. Entering into a negotiation without preparation will only lead to failure. Start with yourself; Make sure you know what they want and do specific research on the other person or organization, identify their needs, understand their strengths and weaknesses. In this stage, you may also need the help of a management consultant, financial advisor, or lawyer.

This technique leads you to the best way of collaboration but never forget that you balance the power in all aspects of negotiation. So, it’s better to offer suppliers a new market opportunity to redress the power imbalance.

--

--