With the development of economic globalization, especially after the accession to WTO, China’s international trade becomes more and more frequent. Any business can not be separated from the negotiations. So business negotiation plays a very important role.
1.1 Concept of business negotiation
Business negotiation is an activity that buyers and sellers take in order to facilitate trading, or to resolve disputes and achieve their own economic interests. Production and development of Business negotiation is under the conditions of the commodity economy, and it has become essential to modern social and economic life. It can be said that there is no commercial negotiations, will not be able to carry out economic activities. (Bazerman, 2006)
1.2 Feature of business negotiation
Business negotiation is a science. It is an art that use of multi-disciplinary knowledge in the business. Operators use it to carry out commercial activities, and compared with other business activities, it has the following features.
a. Breadth and uncertainties of negotiating
Negotiations are the cross-regional, cross-border. For example the purchase and sale of goods, in theory, could be sold to any one of us. As a seller, he has a broad range of commodity sales; as a buyer, he procures goods throughout the Commodity States, even in the world. In addition, in order to make the transaction more favorable, they have extensive contacts with trading partners. However, whether the seller or the buyer, each transaction is done with a specific transaction object. The specific transaction object is uncertain in the absence of competition.
b. Co-operation and exclusion of the negotiating parties
In the purchase and sale negotiations, the seller wants to try to set prices higher, and the buyer would like to try hard to hold down prices; the supply side hopes delivery is as long as possible and the buyer requires to take delivery of the goods as soon as possible.
These reflect exclusionary acts on both sides in the negotiations. Without this exclusion, there is no need for negotiations. Conversely, if only this exclusion, there is no consultation and cooperation, and negotiations will not continue.
In the negotiations, both parties get meet from the other side, the two sides are thinking each other’s requirements and strategy as the starting point, so the negotiation is cooperative. The purpose of the negotiations is to reach an agreement, not to defeat the other side. In the negotiations, the two sides should continue to adjust their own actions and attitudes, to make the necessary concessions, but also understand each other’s requirements, so that negotiations can be successful, and finally both sides reach a quite satisfactory agreement.
c. Random and variability of negotiations
With economic operation in the intense competition and rapidly changing market, as an important component of economic activity, the commercial negotiation, its progress and change are closely related with the main way of thinking and behavior of negotiator. Thus, it changes faster and richer in economic activity, that it is more difficult to predict. And as a result of negotiating structure, environment and strategy, the negotiation will show a variety of changes in the form.
In negotiations, the greater the random, the more variables, controllability becomes smaller, which brings a greater challenge for the negotiating parties, and puts forward higher requirements for the negotiators.
d. Fairness and inequality of the negotiations
The international business negotiations are affected by the supply-demand relations, also affected by price fluctuations. In the specific outcome of the negotiations, the two sides’ meet in the demand for the issue of gains and losses are different. In other words, the outcome of the negotiations is always inequable. There are two main factors: First, the strength of their respective owners; Second, their negotiation skills that the negotiating parties obtained.