Collaborating for Win-Win Solutions

Supplier negotiations can become difficult when both sides focus only on price, deadlines, or immediate constraints. Procurement teams often need to balance cost savings with quality, service, risk, and long-term supplier performance. This session will explore common challenges in supplier negotiations, including unclear goals, limited preparation, competing internal priorities, and conversations that become too transactional too quickly.

Using examples from UWEBC member organizations, we’ll explore practical approaches such as:

• preparing for negotiations by defining must-haves, trade-offs, and fallback options
• understanding supplier pressures and goals to have productive conversations
• involving internal stakeholders early so procurement is not negotiating in isolation (and vice versa)
• using data to support the conversation without overwhelming it
• looking for options beyond price, such as lead times, payment terms, service levels, or process improvements

Participants will leave with specific ideas they can apply right away to plan better negotiations, ask better questions, and keep supplier conversations productive. Whether your team is negotiating contracts, pricing, service issues, or ongoing performance expectations, this session will offer practical steps for creating agreements that support both business needs and stronger supplier relationships.