The sellers account team

If you are a buyer and engaging a large corporate vendor, part of your preparation process needs to include mapping out the key players, including influencers, the corporate decision structure, and those most likely to be included on their team. You know who your Account Manager is, but do you know who she reports to, and does the vendor have a central business desk?

If you cannot answer these questions, you have already left money on the table, without even knowing it!

If this is a strategic deal for the supplier then an Executive Sponsor might be involved, identify him early in the preparation stage, and understand what the Executive Sponsor’s connections are within your organization. This could be a strength and a weakness.

If the Executive Sponsor has a previous relationship with one of your C-level executives, you can be relatively certain that at some point, the Executive Sponsor is going to try to use that connection to push the negotiations along to reach a faster, and usually less advantageous, agreement for you. By preparing your team in advance for this possibility, you can eliminate the damage this could cause and even benefit from the process