How negotiation skills investment delivered £400k return

The Client  

Total Negotiation Group’s client is a UK based FMCG manufacturer with a large portfolio of well-known brands. Their teams of commercial managers negotiate across all accounts in the grocery and convenience sectors.  

Their Challenge 

They were aware that amongst their team of 20 Account Managers negotiation capability varied and there was no one negotiation framework to help Account Managers support their teams. They identified that greater consistency in approach would minimise the risk of unequitable terms agreements across sectors and accounts and would leverage opportunities. 

Objectives of the engagement 

The client specifically wanted to introduce and embed a robust, consistent negotiation approach. This would be borne out by their commercial managers being more confident in their customer negotiation management 

The solution 

Total Negotiation Group created a tailored solution which started with workshops designed to support the negotiation of improved joint business plans. This then moved into an embedding phase of regular coaching and a hot line to support and improve outcomes on all key customer negotiations that year.   

Outcome 

The Account Managers themselves declared over £400k of directly attributable value. This came from a combination of extra listings, a reduction in promotional margin, over-rider targets used to drive business and a rebalancing of growth steps to give the client a higher percentage of the incremental profit. The £400k of financial achievements easily outweighed the £80k cost of Total Negotiation Group’s engagement.