Individual Assignments and Case Analysis. Case Study

Individual Assignments and Case Analysis
1 Develop the problem that Pacific Oil Company faced as it reopened negotiations with Reliant Chemical Company in early 1985.
As a way of improving their business, Pacific Oil Company chose to re-strategize on their trading model. They expected their products’ demands to increase from the then volumes needed. They needed to expand their business to accommodate the same in the years to follow. As a result, the company sought contract extensions with Reliant, manufacture of products used in the building and construction industry, majorly spread in Europe. A negotiation strategy was established, where the companies believed there would be no language barrier to the development of the contract. Pacific Oil had four significant expectations to the contract changes; i) have a long term relationship for the benefit of both firms ii) emphasize on market changes in a way that could convince Reliant that they have a proper supplier to ascertain the first objective iii) Make sure that the commitment to delivery was enhanced and stamped iv) Beef up the price by the use of past quality v) Dwarf the competitors of Pacific Oil. These would later lead to several negotiations, meetings, and changes in perspectives.
The reasons for the unclear changes in the negotiations included changing demands for the products under tight markets, the unreliability of Reliant to change their suppliers if they found a better deal and fears over some change in the requests made by huge-buying customers. They also had reservations over the reclining urge to provide the competitors with the raw materials if they wanted to venture into VCM products. The proposal of the new contract faced a bottleneck as Reliant delayed up to around May 27th when they gave the green light to discuss the remaining issues. First was the surety of the market remaining stable for five years, which Reliant did not want to commit to. Another problem arose, about the volumes that the company was to sell to Reliant, and subsequent meetings were set to discuss these. Later, they discussed a long-lagging metering case that ran from Antwerp to their facility. The resale clause was the last to be debated, which took longer, and would lead Reliant to problems if they did not acquire.
2 Evaluate the styles and effectiveness of Messrs. Fontaine, Gaudin, Hauptmann, and Zinnser as negotiators in this case.
The negotiations by the two sides yielded the expected results. There were two aspects considered in the talks; the benefits each company would...