I use the term Asymmetric Deals to describe agreements between grossly unequal entities. Inequality is often caused by differences in size and resources, but may also include such factors as technological advantages / legacy contains, pace of growth, lack (or presence) of particular expertise, strategic direction and many others.
By now you’ve gone through months of presentation, demos and proposals. If you are at the negotiating table, something you did or showed caught your Partner’s attention. How well do you know what it is? Often the reason your Company is chosen is not what you pitched as your core added value.
Example. Years ago I worked for a company which developed a highly optimized audio compression algorithm. We pitched our technology to a large mobile company to enable their mobile music service. Our main value-add was that our files were much smaller than the industry standard and saved a lot of bandwidth. Much later we found out that the reason we got chosen wasn’t so much because of the file size, but because the company also had a video streaming service on their road map and our audio CODEC and their video CODEC complied with the same standard. Had we known this, we would have received better terms.
You wouldn’t be at the negotiating table if you didn’t have something special, but it is important to understand what that is from the Partner’s point of view.
Key take away – make a list of all of your strengths and weaknesses vs your perspective partner. You may not be in as much of a real disadvantage as you think. Dive deep and really understand your Partner’s motives.
By now you’ve gone through months of presentation, demos and proposals. If you are at the negotiating table, something you did or showed caught your Partner’s attention. How well do you know what it is? Often the reason your Company is chosen is not what you pitched as your core added value.
Example. Years ago I worked for a company which developed a highly optimized audio compression algorithm. We pitched our technology to a large mobile company to enable their mobile music service. Our main value-add was that our files were much smaller than the industry standard and saved a lot of bandwidth. Much later we found out that the reason we got chosen wasn’t so much because of the file size, but because the company also had a video streaming service on their road map and our audio CODEC and their video CODEC complied with the same standard. Had we known this, we would have received better terms.
You wouldn’t be at the negotiating table if you didn’t have something special, but it is important to understand what that is from the Partner’s point of view.
Key take away – make a list of all of your strengths and weaknesses vs your perspective partner. You may not be in as much of a real disadvantage as you think. Dive deep and really understand your Partner’s motives.
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