Journal content

International Business Management

Student name: Lisa Manuela Arévalo Torres
Email: lisa.arevalo@urosario.edu.co

(a) Your tactics and strategy and how they adapted to this electronic forum.

It is not easy to adapt to a negotiation with a person that you don’t really know, and
much less through a media of communication that is no longer as common as email.
However, with my counterparty Justin Hier who represented the agent Kofi
Mwenchena, while I represented the player Ama Ata Fie, we were able to get along
well, talk about what each one wanted to stipulate in the contract and finally reach an
agreement.

The strategy that I used was to implement a much lower percentage than what I
considered correct for both of us, because I assumed that my counterpart was going to
demand much more than what I was proposing him, and thus for both of us to reach an
agreement, in which I had to raise the percentage that he asked for, and that he had to
lower the percentage that I asked for. So that he would know that I was the one hiring,
but not that he was the one who had to put the conditions on me.

On the other hand, the communication strategy: as one of the readings said, email is one
of the dominant forms of business communication since it saves time and money,
however, it is necessary to gain the trust of the other, let there be mutual understanding,
avoid conflicts as much as possible and keep the conversation in a good environment.
That is why, I always try to be as clear; I constantly tried to start the message with a
"Good morning, good afternoon, good night" and finish the message as much as
possible with a "have a good day, send you a hug" and small phrases like that, can
completely change the perspective of the message.

Finally, I always had a well-established objective; First, to reach a deal where the agent
accepted my proposal, and second, that the deal would have been more stipulated in my
conditions than in what the agent requested.
(b) The following questions about your counterparty:

- What three things did your counterpart do well?

Be attentive; He was always willing to reach an agreement with me, he spoke to me

in good way, he was always very respectful from the beginning, he made known
what he really wanted and above all to give his time to finish the activity.
Respond quickly; I can really assure that he was very aware of the email because all
the time he responded to me very quickly, and that helped a lot to complete the
activity in the best possible way.
Suggest me several deals; Both of us were persistently giving different options of
the payout percentages that each one believed was the best for the character that
each of us represented to. Someone else, I'm sure, would have gotten tired and gave
in or just wouldn't have made a deal with me. But my counterparty was always
willing to make several offers to be able to reach an agreement.

- What three things could your counterpart have done differently?

I think that the only thing he could have done differently is not to have started with
an offer where he asked me for a lot more than I really expected, playing the role of
Ama Fie. But I completely understand that that was his strategy, we all started with
one, and my counterparty was not going to be the exception.
For the rest, I feel that I was assigned a very good partner, and he made this
negotiation experience very cool and unique, because of how pending he was,
because he understood well what the activity was about and that he collaborated too
much to be able to start it and finish it.

- What was your reaction to these and how did they affect the outcome of the
negotiation?

When we started the conversation, my counterparty was the one who speak
first. Then, we knew who each one was, and we began the negotiation at once.
As soon as I saw his first proposal, I was a little thoughtful about everything he
was requesting me about payment, but I thought like: "This will be a very good
negotiation", after we were sending each other text messages, he proposed a lot
about the percentage payment and I proposed very little, and so several
messages happened, and I thought like: "My counterpart doesn’t give in to my
proposals, I didn’t expect it." However, all this affected the negotiation in a
good way, because that was precisely A NEGOTIATION, but not just two or
three messages that reached a deal just to talk a little bit and get out of it. On the
other hand, we were able to establish a good relationship, on my part there was
trust and I hope that on his part as well, we both paid attention to the interests
and arguments of the other, there was sympathy and despite the fact that it was
difficult to reach a deal, we managed to communicate with the other, which was
key.