Steps in International Negotiations

Following are crucial steps to be followed in international negotiations to reach the final outcome:

1. Preparation

Proper preparation for your international negotiation requires studying in-depth material about the target culture and/or engaging a coach who commands extensive knowledge of the country and its business practices. Successful international negotiators never engage without careful preparation.

2. Set Objectives

It is important not to assume that the objectives of the foreign side will be identical with those you would expect in a domestic negotiation. Spending the time and effort to learn about them prior to engaging will give you a strong advantage.

3. Maintaining Relationships

Successful negotiations abroad usually require a lot of up-front relationship building. To varying degrees, people will want to learn about your company background and capabilities, prior experiences, strategies and objectives, long-term plans, and so on. They also want to get to know you personally before they decide to trust you. In several cultures, people don’t want to conduct business with you unless you convinced them that you are seeking a long-term engagement rather than just ‘pursuing a deal.’

4. Decision making authority

Since group decisions require a series of interactions between all stakeholders to form opinions and establish consensus, they cannot be made right at the negotiation table. Sufficient time needs to be given between negotiation rounds for the group to go through iterations of the process and reach their conclusions. Gaining insight into this process is difficult, so it is pivotal to identify relevant members of the group making the decision in order to try to influence each of them in your favor.

5. Techniques

People around the world are very creative when it comes to negotiating, bargaining, and haggling. Numerous negotiation techniques are used across the world. Some of them includes:

Deception, False Demands, and False Concessions
Extreme Openings
Aggression and Strong Emotions
Silence
Best-Offer Pressure
Time Pressure

6. Closing the deal

When approaching the final stages of an international negotiation, you’ll need to carefully look for clues that the other side is ready to close. several cultures, ‘yes’ won’t mean ‘I agree’, but rather only signals ‘I hear what you’re saying.’ It does not convey consent.