The opera case negotiation

Business Negotiations Summary of My negotiation from the Opera-case and how I think it was different from other cases The Opera case was a case about relationship and reputation, it made the negotiation a little bit different. We discussed the case in a more open way and were really honest to each other, we also applied many of the things we had learnt from the book and classes. When I compared with other cases I could see how we negotiated in a less stressful way and did focus on the problem and not on positions. And I think we learnt a lot of things for the following cases that ended up more open and with a focus on the problem.

My negotiation from the Opera-case and how I think it was different from other cases At first I though it should be like the other cases but when I started to read I understood that the deal was not really about money it was more about a relationship and reputation. Our Negotiation We started the negotiation with a discussion over the problem, the Opera needed a singer and Sally Soprano needed a job. Both of them have some wishes and we tried to solve them in the best way we could during the short time we had to negotiate. We started a really open negotiation as both parts really wanted to have a solution to the problem. We also talked about different requirements and solutions. I could really feel that both of us had learnt new things from the classes that we used in the negotiation as we did a more relevant discussion and listen to the other persons opinion.

We came to a conclusion that both of us wanted to make an agreement, as the Opera wanted Sally and Sally really wanted to help the Opera. But then did we just discuss the price that would be fair for both parts. What I missed afterwards was that we could have solved it in different ways, we did just focus on one amount of money, we did not talk about what would happened if we did not sell the tickets or if we had to do extra marketing when we changed the singer. I saw that some other groups did this and that would have been a good option, even though you can always ask about how much different those money should do if the Opera did not sell enough tickets, as it would not be any bigger sums of money. One thing we did discuss much when we came to an agreement was that it should be a fair agreement, I felt as the negotiator for the Opera that they should pay Sally a proper salary. We discussed what salary she had got before and how much the salaries had increased the last years.

Me as the Opera did also think about the reputation of the Opera and what could be fair as it was just a short time left before the first performance. In my opinion I think both parts had power in different ways, even though the power of the Opera was a little bit higher. Sally could have required a higher salary but she did also risk that she would not get any job, and the Opera could had offered her a much lower salary but could also have risked that she did not want the job and in that case they would have had the options of taking the other inexperienced girl or cancel the show. I had in that case a clear bottom-line of what could happened if we did not find a singer but I also had an upper limit of maximum 45 000. That was also my BATNA and I tried to make the best of it, as I did also now what salary we had offered Risingstar and approximately how much we should offer the inexperienced girl is made it a little bit easier to offer a fair salary.

We did maybe the most common fault in the first negotiation; we did just focus on one thing, the position, and did not care about the problem. And I have seen similar things in other occasions also, when we had the Batia and Alba negotiation many of the teams did just focus of winning over the other team and not about making as much profit as possible, and the teams also had big problems to trust each other. But in the same time, these cases have been different. The one about the Law firm was different from the Opera case in the sentence that the seller just wanted to get rid of the books and the buyer did not necessarily need to buy them. There was no on-going relationship, which made it more to a competition of just getting as good price as possible.

When it comes to other cases like the Hacker-Star or the Construction of the Bunyonville, I think we had learnt more and were not that stressed out about the whole negotiation situation. We discussed more relaxed and open-minded, maybe because the role in the cases were not any person in the company either, we were just related to the case in some other way, an old friend of one part or the bank giving loans to the company doing the project. We had listen to the other side and discuss the case in an open way to come the best possible agreement. In these to cases we were more objective also as we were not part of the company and it made it easier to understand the other side. Conclusion I feel that I learnt a lot from the Opera case, most of all just to be more relaxed about the negotiation and to listen to the other side and what their opinion is.