SkypeSkypeSkype

Hello again! 

On this post I am going to reflect what it is like to negotiate over the internet e.g. over Skype. As demonstrated on the lesson today, it can be really challenging to make Skype negotiations. However, as mentioned on the lesson Skype interviews are commonplace in workplace and therefore it’s important to acknowledge the pros and cons of having a meeting this way. 

We started the lesson by formulating a strategy with my team members for the negotiation. After that we started the negotiation and this is when all the fun started. We had some major technical problems in the beginning as we were unable to add one participant to the call for some unknown reason. However, we eventually started the negotiation by introducing the parties we presented and by telling what amount of money we were asking for. In my opinion the communication between the companies was good and arguments were presented in an exemplary fashion. We all understood the differences in costs on every different project area and were ready to adjust our budgets accordingly. What is more, we also talked about the schedule of the project which in my opinion was a good thing as it increased the awareness about how the project was to be carried out. We didn’t only negotiate about the time but also about the time in which we could make the project happen. 

I was representing a road construction company operating in Australia. The roads were to be built before other construction could take place and we used this point as means to convince the other parties that our work was critical and in order to speed it up we would require a fair share fo the budget. We ended up with a deal which was 30% of the overall budget and 1 year time to complete the project. This was a generous time frame for a project of this scope and my team was very happy with it. I think that the negotiation was a success because everyone told in the end that they were happy with the results. They were still smiling in the classroom too so I think it couldn’t have too bad hahah (am I right?). The

exercise taught me about the potential of Skype meetings is that it is very flexible to have a meeting with Skype. I think that it suits particularly well into a multicultural environment where the distances between the people are long and negotiations are arranged between different countries.

Even though the negotiation went well it wasn’t without problems. The problems in this case were mostly technical. We couldn’t always hear each other well and people were talking over each other because of the lag in the service. This was followed by a confused silence as everybody were trying to figure out who was to speak next. There was also some background noise which made hearing the other parties hard at times. It also felt like something was missing when you only had the voice to listen to. The body language was completely missing and at least personally I was longing for it. It’s a lot easier to communicate with other people when you can actually see them. I think in addition tho the fluency the body language is one of the main things that differs between regular negotiation and a Skype negotiation. In a regular meeting you can see the people and read them and this way form a picture about what they are thinking about a particular issue. In Skype meeting there’s only silence when they are not speaking and it doesn’t tell much about what the person actually thinks. I think that the video that was shown to us in class was a really good one as it presented the challenges of Skype negotiations in an accurate and funny way. I wonder what the name of the video was (does anybody know)??

All in all it was a fun exercise and I believe that we all learned the limitations and potentials that Skype negotiation can provide.

That’s all for today. See you on next lesson !