Final paper

Professor Alexandra Mislin

Sakshi Agrawal

Final Paper

November 11th,2020

Executive Summary

After research and market research of the CEO Mr. Arvind Agrawal and his company, I

interviewed him about the various negotiations he had through out his time in the industry and

what are some of the specific ways he dealt with it. One of the major patterns that I analyzed in

this interview was that he uses integrative and distributive approach based on what he desires to

get in that particular situation and what is the way their counterpart is reacting. The interview

questions were based what some of the common situations that he deals with, how frequently do

they arrive and how does the CEO manage to get what he wants out of the situation. Is anger one

of the ways to solve the problem, do you think that the same solution applies to similar kind of

problems of deal them differently. What was the one negotiation that you feel helped you

succeed and one that you failed at. Also, the negotiation that found gave him a lesson and the one

that was particularly interesting. After the critical analysis of his experiences, I found that the

two strategies work well in the real estate industry in India. He aims to satisfy each and every

customer of his while also making sure that he is ahead in the market compared to his

competitors by taping at resources that no other real estate developer has seen potential in until

then.
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Analysis

The real estate industry is very competitive in India and has a lot of scope due to the

untapped opportunities and high customer demands which leads to the CEO making deals and

negotiating for various things on a regular basis. The CEO shared a lot of experiences, one of

which that he found the most successful was the one in which he acquired the biggest land that

he was trying to acquire at a price lower that he planned. He mentioned that the land was already

under construction and something tragic happened to the company who was building resort

under that area. Since it happened and the company went under bankruptcy, the CEO used his

Integrative approach and convinced the company that he is paying him a very good him amount

for the same which led to the deal. The only condition that led to the deal at such a low price and

a win-win situation for both the parties was that Mr. Agrawal wanted the complete ownership of

land and the other party wanted to open and own that part of the property where they would have

their hotel. It was a difficult situation as Mr. Agrawal had different plans for the land and did not

want any piece of the land to be under someone else’s ownership and if that part of the land is in

the middle of somewhere then it would have caused problem, so in order to solve it, Mr. Agrawal

offered the company to lease the land when Mr. Agrawal will build a residential site along with a

business park. In that business park, the company can open their restaurant. The rent was a

minimal amount so Mr. Agrawal, in order to make the other company feel better and get the land

even in lower prices offered a concession of 6 month’s rent which appealed to the other company

very much as their dream was also fulfilled and Mr. Agrawal also got the land at a cheaper price

compared to the market rate. This negotiation showed that is a active listener and understands the
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needs of his counterparts and tries to work in the best interest of both the parties to make things

happen.

Another incident that happened with the CEO was when a customer booked a 5BHK flat

5 years ago and did not pay the amount for the same. Over the years, the price of the flat

increased and not she has been asked to pay more than the amount that she booked for 5 years

ago. Now, after 5 years she comes yelling and wants to have the apartment for the same price

which is practically not possible for the company to do so. Due to her financial problems, she

was stubborn to pay the same price which did not go well with the CEO. At first, he used

distributive strategy because it was the customer’s fault and very generously told the customer

that nothing could be done now and since the legal documents are ready, the customer can be

taken to the court for not paying the amount on time and breaching the contract, but the customer

acted as a very good negotiator and convinced her inability to pay at the current prices by using

her financial problems as one of the strong points. Since the reputation of the company comes at

stake, the CEO decided to charge at a price which gives him a little profit, but the prices were not

according to what they were being charged 5 years ago. It was a little lower than the current

market prices. The CEO make the contract with the customer that if they agree to pay the full

amount within the limited time frame of 6 months, then the company can provide you the

concession of the difference between the market prices and the price that the company is offering

now. Even though this was not the negotiation where the CEO was willing to give up the prices

as it is not acceptable for him to make a meal below the market prices, but in this case, since it

was an old deal, the CEO changed his strategy and realized his mistake that he should add this

situation as a clause that delay of payment for more than 6 months would lead to a change in the
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price of the apartment and you would be charged at the current prices of that time. This was a

lesson for the CEO which did lead to some losses and a lot of learning.

Another experience that the CEO shared which according to him was very unsuccessful

was the one wherein he terminated the contract with the present marketing firm due to some

issues in the past and felt that they would find another marketing team which would also work on

their social media presence. In India, in the small towns it is very hard to find all the resources,

which happened with the company as well. The CEO had his BATNA in mind but had no prior

conversation with him. While doing the negotiation, the marketing firm did not agree to any of

the terms that the CEO offered and the relationship between the two did not work well which led

to no contract. This impacted the company on a very large scale because their customer presence

went down to a huge scale and the CEO was unable to find any other marketing firm who could

take over and improve this situation. In this situation, none of the negotiation strategy worked as

the marketing firm was very diligent about the way they want things to be while did not go well

with the company. This shows that there are times when even if you become extremely flexible

and offer to pay the highest amount possible , but if the negotiator doesn’t want to be flexible,

then things will not go as planned even if it is the best deal possible.
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Key-take away

The key takes away that I found was that things are not easy and might not go as planned.

The negotiations could really turn around the negotiator or the counterpart depending on their

priorities. Sometimes, you have to little less firm when it gets to getting things done and there

could be various reasons behind it expect for monetary gains. Some of the deals might not work

out as planned, so always keep your BATNA ready as a backup plan is very important no matter

how small those situations might look like, they could still affect the business on a large scale.