As communication methods have changed throughout history, negotiation has followed. Prior to the industrial revolution, people would negotiate face-to-face when bartering, exchanging negotiated quantities of corn for negotiated quantities of musket balls.<\/p>\n
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Then, of course, the telephone allowed negotiators in different locations to bargain. Finally, in the past 10-15 years, email became a popular \u2013 but sometimes ineffective \u2013 medium in which to exchange offers (our online class \u201cPowerful Negotiation For Successful Buying\u201d teaches when negotiating by email is smart and when it is the most foolish thing a procurement professional can do). Of course, eSourcing technologies allow for all sorts of online negotiation activities.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
Stroll through any mall and you\u2019re likely to bump into (literally) a few teens walking while staring intently at their cell phones as their thumbs flail away on the keypad in the process of texting (also called \u201ctxting\u201d or \u201csending text messages\u201d). These are future representatives of our suppliers.<\/p>\n
Is texting the future method of negotiating?<\/p>\n
Some of you are probably saying \u201cI hope not.\u201d But the reality is that texting is likely to creep into the mainstream negotiation process to some degree soon.<\/p>\n
If you are feeling yourself getting mad, it might be time to read \u201cWho Moved My Cheese?\u201d again.<\/p>\n
Now, don\u2019t get me wrong. I am not advocating that you go out and conduct all of your negotiations by text message from this point forward. After all, texting has many disadvantages from a negotiation standpoint, such as:<\/p>\n
But when you need a simple response quickly (or want to create that illusion in order to gain pressured concessions from your suppliers), texting might fit the bill in some limited situations.<\/p>\n
Now, texting among teens has its own vocabulary and acronyms, like \u201cur\u201d (for \u201cyour,\u201d \u201cyou\u2019re,\u201d or \u201cyou are\u201d), \u201cl8r\u201d (for \u201clater\u201d), and, of course, the old standby from the email days \u201clol\u201d (for \u201claughing out loud\u201d). So, do we need a similar vocabulary for procurement negotiations? I don\u2019t know, but just to be safe I\u2019ll start one here (& u can feel free 2 add ur own in the comments):<\/p>\n
Natually, ethics that apply to traditional negotiation will need to apply to negotiation-by-txt as well. With the aforementioned high probability of misunderstanding, you want to be careful to not insult the supplier or behave inappropriately. For example, I would never use \u201cLOL\u201d with a supplier as doing so may insult the supplier and make the supplier terminate the negotiation. Also, be very careful when using the \u201cF\u201d character, as doing so may indicate the use of a profanity, as in \u201cSend ur bid ASAFP.\u201d My thumbs always inadvertently add unintended letters to messages, so proofread to ensure that you didn\u2019t add that vulgar \u201cF.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some parts of this post are slightly written in jest, I do feel that texting will rear its head into more and more procurement negotiations in the near future. Therefore, it is imperitive to be prepared.<\/p>\n
Never fight change when the writing is on the wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As communication methods have changed throughout history, negotiation has followed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n