Jayne is the senior buyer for Pots, Pans, Plus (PPP).  She has been with the company for 8 years.  While PPP's headquarters is in Atlanta, GA, the company is owned by a larger Swedish company, Balograf.  PPP is a kitchen supply store for restaurants and home chefs.  PPP typically sells a lot of upscale brands like All Clad and Le Creuset.  Their latest market research has led them to look for some budget friendly options to attract some new customers to their stores/website. Over the course of six months, Jayne and her staff narrowed their search for a new supplier to the Chinese company, Joyoung.  Joyoung's CEO, Sales VP, and Operations VP will be meeting with Jayne and the team next week to discuss a trial deal on their popular economy non-stick pots and pans. 

 Joyoung is a Chinese company that makes household good such as pots, pans, and kitchen appliances.  They have been in business for 25 years and their headquarters is in the Shandong province, 40 miles south of Beijing.  Joyoung was started by Wang Lei who is currently the CEO.  Wang works closely with his son in law, Li Jun, who is the VP of Sales, and his friend, Zhang Hong, Operations VP.  They are excited to work with companies in the United States.  They have only recently started selling their products outside of China and Southeast Asia.  They have a huge meeting with Pots, Pans, Plus next week.  They know if they can start selling with a company like PPP, that will get them on the map.  Wang is worried that final approval on this new business relationship from the Shandong province government office won't come until after their meeting with the Americans.  But he will cross that bridge when he gets to it.  Wang's goal is to try to add a six-month deal on their dutch ovens, due to an overproduction mistake at the manufacturing plant in Jinan.  

 Jayne is nervous. Her big meeting with Joyoung is tomorrow.  She has been trying to brief Lars the CEO, Marcela the COO, and Rafael the CFO of PPP but their schedules have been crazy due to year end budgeting and 2024 projections.  And trying to talk to them has been rough since profits are down year over year.  Besides reviewing the pricing, shipping, and inventory deals she wanted to go over culture/manners and needed to discuss the mountain of paperwork required by the US government regarding product safety.  Jayne felt that the pricing and inventory deals were solid but she needs to pin Joyoung down on their shipping costs.  Rafael wants Jayne to get shipping costs down by 30%.  If she cannot, the deal may have to change.  Oh, and she just remembered...they are all going out to dinner tomorrow night, must make a reservation.  Jayne wonders if she should have hired a Chinese culture consultant. 

 

Questions 

1) There could be multiple pre-negotiations.  What could the pre-negotiation stage look like in this scenario?  

2) What are some of the environmental context factors that could affect this negotiation/business relationship?

3) What are the external stakeholders and who are they in this scenario?

4) What are some immediate context factors could affect this negotiation between PPP and Joyoung?

5) What are immediate stakeholders and who are they in this scenario?

6) What are your thoughts on the negotiation?  How do you see this going?  Do you see win/win (integrative) or win/lose (distributive)?