International Board of Governors for Commercial Negotiations

Commercial negotiations occur in a wide degree of industries, functions, and locations and have a broad array of applicable techniques. While all forms of negotiations have foundational similarities, commercial negotiations are distinctly different than other forms such as:

Crisis/hostage negotiating (the highest form of the craft – negotiating over lives!), where the “other side”:

1. 1. • is in a highly emotional/irrational state
      • has limited, if any, experience negotiating
      • doesn’t have other <good> options and
      • won’t have an ongoing relationship

Most crisis negotiators (along with novice commercial negotiators), don’t realize these differences (unknown unknowns) and often introduce risks to commercial deals in their noble quest to/for help – or for financial gain…

Or legal negotiations, where case-law, precedent, jurisdiction (and jurisdiction shopping), leverage (time and/or money) often dictate outcomes. And again, the parties are locked into a one-to-one, often win-lose, agreement.

Therefor a different set of tools are required to negotiate commercial agreements well over the long-term.

This is the genesis for a set of commercial negotiation standards – one produced by experienced and successful business professionals who base their negotiations and teachings on balancing long-term relationships, grow the pie win-win value exchange, and total cost of ownership with a fiduciary responsibility to do better for their “side” / shareholders.

The IBGCN (International Board of Governors for Commercial Negotiations) is the first group specifically dedicated to establishing and improving standards for ethics, processes, and results of commercial negotiations.

Ethics & Integrity​

When your only goal is to save lives and you’ll never see the other side again, it’s easy to operate in the grey areas of ethics, lies and manipulation are easily rationalized as permissible tools of the trade. Commercial negotiations break down if trust is broken.

Processes & Techniques

Fixed pie negotiating (bid the spec, negotiate over price) is limiting and often counter productive. Being willing to listen to the other side, being creative, and exchanging value along with ideas is a great way to both grow the pie AND claim more value as well.

Educational Accreditation

Prior to the founding of the IBGCN there was no barrier to entry to claim to be a “negotiation expert” and/or train others. Professional standards, for commercial negotiators and negotiation training companies, set by the IBGCN changed that!