Multi-Party Negotiations
A very common type of multi-party negotiation in high-tech is the cross functional team, where representatives of different departments meet together as a task force to achieve a common goal. Another common multi-party negotiation involves several parties within and outside of the organization. For example, an engineer may negotiate internally with a product manager who in turn will negotiate with the customer who may be negotiating with other vendors, their legal counsel or their customers.
There are several key challenges that can arise in multi-party negotiations. The first is to understand who are the parties involved in the negotiation and whether all of the affected parties will be present at the table. In addition, it is helpful to understand the relationships between the different parties (i.e., who may form coalitions with each other, who may have had poor relationships in the past, etc.) and how these relationships may impact the negotiation.
When the negotiations with multiple parties are done sequentially rather than having everyone at the table, linkage effects (i.e., how each agreement impacts subsequent agreements) must be considered. Multi-party negotiations take more time than dyadic negotiations and those involved may have different time tables for achieving outcomes. It is very important to understand the different parties’ issues, interests and goals and formulate a strategy for each of the parties.