Businesses

As an example of integrated negotiation in the corporate realm, we helped one client decide where to build a new plant based on operational efficiencies as well as a detailed analysis of how their new plant’s location would impact their most significant negotiations with clients, unions, suppliers and government officials. We also examined how each of these negotiations would affect one another as well as broader negotiations not directly connected to the new plant. The result: a finely tuned, forward-looking, and wholly integrated strategy that produced the most value possible for our client over time.

The dynamic founder of an established international brand had been frustrated in his ongoing efforts to liquidate a portion of his minority stake and to earn more money from the early-stage strategic investors who now dominated his board. We went to the board on his behalf, promoting his interests, and subsequently helped negotiate the sale of the company to an investment group. The result: a highly successful outcome with our client being able to bank a considerable sum of money while still maintaining a significant stake under the new owners. We negotiated his new role and higher compensation, hiring lawyers to support us in that process.

On behalf of this food and beverage company, we brought together a team of its commodity buyers from around the world to improve their already strong performance through intense, tailored negotiation training over the course of a week. During our time together, we delved into the strategy and psychology of their craft, how to get creative in their negotiations despite the apparent limitations related to buying and selling commodities, and explored approaches for keeping a robust number of suppliers operating for diversity sake and to avoid the rise of monopolies. Based on advance interviews and surveys with participants, we developed new training cases for this client that allowed us to successfully target their most critical influence and decision-making challenges.

We have quietly advised the CEO of a highly successful solar technology company on all significant deals over the past decade with challenging larger buyers and suppliers around the world, including national governments,  corporations, and the United Nations. This engagement includes: an ongoing, highly advanced negotiation class to build the CEO’s capacity to handle tough counterparts; advisory work to standardize the pricing of complex product and service offerings; drafting partnership and sales contracts; and developing legal strategies to deal with non-compliant partners.

We started by settling long-standing internal shareholder disputes within this fast-casual restaurant’s ownership group, allowing for unified decision-making. We then worked with management to identify areas where operations could be improved to enhance valuations. In parallel, we developed financial projections, valued the company, and conducted talks with multiple buyers before focusing on the best offer. We negotiated the detailed terms of the deal, guided due diligence, managed the transfer of leases to the new owners, and oversaw the legal team — which resulted in significant savings for our client.

Our Managing Director Peter Johnston led a labor-management engagement with a bitter history including recent lockouts and strikes. At the request of both parties, union and management, Peter and his team started by training all parties together in best practices for negotiating differences with each other over the course of three days. With Peter’s guidance, the parties dug into brainstorming about some of their most challenging issues in upcoming talks on the final day of training. Peter then helped structure talks and mediated them until the parties were able to operate on their own. A ground-breaking contract was reached and the parties agreed that our training and facilitation of their contract discussions were critical to this positive outcome.