Case | HBS Case Collection | 2007 (Revised from original 2006 version)

The Bollingers: Negotiating with Wal-Mart (A)

Abstract

Describes the negotiations by Howard and Marilyn Bollinger over supplying a new product line to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer. The (A) case outlines the Bollingers' development of their product, the Wallpockett, documents their negotiation preparation for dealing with Wal-Mart, and describes their negotiation challenges. The (B) case describes strategies, tactics, and the results of their negotiations with Wal-Mart and draws on their experience to provide a set of recommended approaches to retail-supplier negotiations.

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Product Development; Supply Chain; Problems and Challenges; Retail Industry;

Format: Print

5 pages

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Citation:

Sebenius, James K., and Ellen Knebel. "The Bollingers: Negotiating with Wal-Mart (A)." Harvard Business School Case 907-009, September 2007. (Revised from original November 2006 version.)

Sued for patent infringement, chemical manufacturer C.K. Claridge tries to design a settlement strategy taking into account a decision analysis of litigating v. negotiating. The plaintiffs are the patent holder and its sole licensee, who is also a CKC competitor. (This case is a revised, alternative version of “C.K. Coolidge, Inc. (Abridged),” HBS No. 607-006.)

Describes the hardball tactics facing Peter Welz, who seeks to negotiate a make-or-break contract with a vastly larger potential client. Welz's counterpart team is led by Preston Spitzer, a notoriously tough player who fully understands his side's massive advantages in the process. With the economic fate of Welz's newly public smaller firm in the balance, Welz and his team must figure out how to handle some very tough tactics by Spitzer and his minions aimed at extracting lopsided contract concessions. These tactics include demeaning remarks, repeated threats to opt for a competitor, misrepresentations, repudiation of previously agreed provisions, last-minute demands, divide-and-conquer moves, and a waiting game that exploits the smaller firm's evidently urgent need for a closure. The (A) case sets up the negotiations and poses an immediate tactical challenge in the context of the overall process. The (B) case describes the strategies, tactics, and results of these negotiations, along with Welz's broader insights into a more productive approach to the common challenge of dealing with very hard bargainers.

Beginning in 1994, a series of articles and public discolures indicated that Swiss banks may have retained assets belonging to victims of the Holocaust, and also may have engaged in long term attempts to block survivors' ability to recover those assets after World War II. Stuart Eizenstat, a longtime government official, and U.S. Special Envoy for Property Restitution, undertook a complex multi-year negotiation between victims' representatives, advocacy groups, government officials, and the banks in an unprecedented attempt to obtain restitution for the victims. Unifying fractious parties within an uncertain legal, social, and business landscape, Eizenstat's unique approach of quantifying "rough justice" in order to enforce the accountability of corporate entities and governments for past injustices in Switzerland, forms the basis of this study.

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The Bollingers: Negotiating with Wal-Mart (A)

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