Marketing, Sales and Customer Management (MSC)

4.2 Bridging Cultural Divides

The space across the negotiating table represents more than just the physical difference between two negotiators. It could also represent a cultural divide that encompasses a complex set of differences in the ways in which the negotiators think, perceive, communicate, and behave toward each other. The coordination, consistency, and clarity in negotiating that an integration of marketing, sales, and customer services makes possible requires a high level of skill in recognizing and adapting to cultural divides in five areas: agreement focus, interactive style, time sensitivity, decision-making hierarchy, and relationship value (see Fig. 2).

Agreement Focus. The objective of any negotiation is to arrive at an agreement ...