Elevating Negotiation Strategies With LeanLinking’s DEALS

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Lora Haun, Product Manager at LeanLinking, discusses DEALS and its impact on procurement negotiations
LeanLinking’s DEALS platform is bridging the gap in procurement between high-level strategy and effective tactical execution to deliver real-world results

Negotiation Strategies and Tactics in Procurement: Elevating the Process with DEALS

Negotiation strategies are central to securing favourable terms with suppliers, shaping long-term relationships, and ensuring alignment with high-level business goals. While many companies invest in crafting robust negotiation strategies and training employees, the challenge is often in translating that theory into action. 

This is where LeanLinking's DEALS platform comes in—bridging the gap between high-level strategy and effective tactical execution to deliver real-world results.

As Lora Haun, Product Manager at LeanLinking, explains: "As Sun Tzu said, ‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’ DEALS bridges this gap by enabling procurement teams to transform high-level strategy into actionable tactics. It ensures that teams not only develop a strong strategy but also execute it effectively with the right tactics, at the right time, to maximise value."

From Strategy to Execution: The Need for DEALS

Many organisations spend significant time building negotiation strategies and training their procurement teams on how to execute them effectively. These trainings, often conducted by top industry specialists using proven methodologies, provide valuable insights. 

However, Lora adds: "While many of these trainings are excellent, retention is often low. Employees are eager to apply what they’ve learned, but since negotiations aren't a daily task for most, it’s hard for them to turn this knowledge into skills."

DEALS enables organisations to input their training methodologies and negotiation theories directly into the platform, creating a structured system for applying that knowledge. By centralising this information, DEALS ensures that strategies and tactics aren’t forgotten after training but are consistently applied. It also acts as a teaching tool, helping employees follow the company’s own negotiation playbook, thus turning theory into practice.

Streamlining Preparation and Gathering Knowledge

One of the most challenging aspects of negotiation is the preparation stage. Gathering data from multiple sources—contracts, competitor analysis, market insights, and supplier performance—can be time-consuming and complex. Without a streamlined process, many procurement teams either rush through preparation or forgo negotiations altogether, defaulting to contract renewals without challenging existing terms.

"Knowledge gathering is one of the longest parts of the process," explains Lora. 

"With diverse tech stacks and organisational setups, gathering the needed information can take so long that teams don’t prepare thoroughly, losing opportunities to add value. Some negotiations don’t even happen because teams renew contracts with outdated terms."

DEALS solves this by centralising all negotiation-related data in a single platform, making information accessible and automating many of the manual processes that slow down preparation. With faster access to critical data, procurement teams can initiate more negotiations, ultimately capturing more value for their organisation.

Going Beyond Price: Negotiation on Multiple Dimensions

Negotiation often focuses on price, but limiting discussions to financial terms can cause companies to overlook other areas where they can gain value. DEALS helps procurement teams broaden their perspective, ensuring they consider a wider array of negotiation levers such as delivery schedules, performance metrics, or additional services.

"Often, the easiest thing to negotiate is price, but DEALS helps users see that there’s so much more to discuss," says Lora. 

"Teams can consider factors beyond price, like service levels or delivery terms, to create contracts that deliver value in multiple areas."

By shifting the focus from just cost savings to a broader value proposition, DEALS enables procurement teams to negotiate terms that better align with their long-term strategic goals.

LeanLinking’s DEALS platform streamlines procurement negotiations, turning strategy into actionable results

A Platform for Transparency and Collaboration

Transparency and collaboration are essential for successful negotiations. DEALS provides a one-stop shop where all information related to contract negotiations is stored, allowing procurement teams to set targets, track progress, and collaborate effectively. This centralised hub ensures that everyone involved has access to the same information, creating an environment where communication is seamless.

"DEALS helps with transparent reporting and creates valuable feedback loops that help procurement teams learn and improve over time," says Lora. 

"It’s a platform where all things related to contract negotiations live, enabling teams to collaborate on even the most complex negotiations."

Making Data-Driven Decisions with DEALS

In today’s data-rich environment, decision-making must be driven by accurate, up-to-date information. DEALS integrates data from a variety of sources, including contracts, market trends, and supplier performance metrics, enabling procurement teams to make well-informed decisions. The platform’s analytics capabilities help teams understand the power dynamics in negotiations, allowing them to craft strategies that are based on facts rather than intuition.

"By providing a centralised fact base and planning tools on a tactical level, DEALS helps teams understand the power balance between their organisation and suppliers, ensuring that they can negotiate from a position of strength," Lora explains. 

"It automates many of the manual processes involved in gathering data, giving teams the flexibility to focus on what really matters."

DEALS leverages big data to optimise supplier negotiations, offering tailored strategies that respond to the specific dynamics of each situation. It brings together information from contracts, competitor analysis, market insights, and supplier performance data, enabling users to make informed, data-driven decisions that lead to better negotiation outcomes.

Supporting Junior Negotiators and Knowledge Transfer

One of DEALS’ unique features is its ability to lower the barrier to entry for junior negotiators. By providing structured guidance and making negotiation data accessible, the platform enables less experienced team members to lead complex negotiations confidently. This also facilitates knowledge transfer from senior to junior staff, ensuring that expertise is shared across the team.

"DEALS lowers the barrier to entry for medium to large negotiations, enabling junior negotiators to participate and lead complex negotiations while facilitating knowledge transfer from senior to junior team members," Lora adds.

The Future of Procurement Negotiations with DEALS

LeanLinking’s flagship product, Relations, is already used by major clients such as Roche, Starbucks, DS Smith, Bulten, and BASF. Now, DEALS stands as LeanLinking’s specialty platform, designed specifically to enhance procurement negotiations. With its machine learning capabilities, DEALS is constantly evolving, offering automation features that improve efficiency and tactical engines that suggest negotiation strategies based on gathered data.

Lora concludes: "We’re actively working on some exciting AI-driven features that will soon be available to our users. These include advanced machine learning tools for analysing large sets of contract data and providing real-time insights. These upcoming capabilities will transform how procurement teams handle negotiations, offering faster, smarter, and more strategic decision-making processes. We can’t wait to share these innovations with our users and help them unlock even greater value."

DEALS ensures that procurement teams not only negotiate more effectively but also learn and improve with each negotiation cycle, enabling them to maximise the value from their supplier relationships and stay competitive in an ever-changing market.

To read the full story in the magazine click HERE


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