Negotiation and Contracting in Procurement and Supply

Procurement negotiation is rarely a single transaction and is often trained as though it were. The supplier will still be there next year, the concession won today is recovered through a variation or a quiet service reduction, and the agreement is managed by somebody who was not in the room. This week covers preparation, which is where most of the outcome is decided, the conduct of the negotiation itself, and the part usually skipped: turning what was agreed into terms that still mean the same thing to both parties in eighteen months.

It runs 7 times over the published calendar, in 6 cities and live online. Every date is the same programme with the same content and the same certificate.

• Establish your own position, including the point at which you walk away.
• Read the supplier's position and their constraints before conceding anything.
• Trade variables other than price, and know what each one is worth.
• Recognise a tactic aimed at you, and respond without escalating.
• Record the agreement so it means the same thing to both parties later.

Procurement and category managers, buyers negotiating supply agreements, contract managers who inherit the result, and technical staff who join negotiations.

Short input, then work. Across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each, the balance sits deliberately with the second: a programme where the trainer talks for six hours produces notes rather than capability.

• Your own material

  Exercises run on situations delegates bring, not on a case study written for a different organisation in a different decade.

• A capped cohort

  Small enough that everybody is asked something. Executive programmes are capped tighter still.

• Practice under scrutiny

  The difficult conversation, the challenged assumption, the decision defended out loud. Judgement is not built by watching.

• Something to take back

  Each day ends with a thing you can use on Monday rather than a slide deck you will not reopen.

• A negotiation plan for one live agreement, with the walk away point established.
• A variable map showing what can be traded and what each is worth.
• A term sheet translating the agreed position into contract language.

A GATI certificate recording what you attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended.

Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record, which is what makes it worth holding. It records participation. This site will not imply one it does not have.