In situations where a buyer (or seller) faces multiple interested parties on the other side, competitive forces are at work. However, competition is typically not very pronounced especially when it comes to non-standard products and services, or bespoke requirements that the parties want to negotiate over. In such situations, market forces don’t necessarily work as in genuine commodity markets, weakening the bargaining position of the buyer (or seller).

With NEXT – the Negotiation Excellence approach by TWS – for multilateral negotiations, we have developed a unique and award-winning approach, based on market and mechanism design: Using market design, we help our customers to analyse and actively re-shape the markets they operate in as Procurement (or Sales) professionals. We achieve this by changing the market dynamics and enabling competition, and very often re-animating previously existing competition.

Existing or newly created competition is then leveraged in these projects with TWS Partners’ most comprehensive expertise in the field of mechanism design. This allows the buyer (or seller) to identify and implement an optimal and tailored negotiation design, i.e. a rule set that governs the negotiation process.

NEXT has led to unparalleled outcomes – and our project work has been recognised with some of the most prestigious awards in the field of supply chain management and Procurement.