The Ambulance Jeep
Role: You work as Head of Logistics for the Dutch company “Helping Hands”. Right now, you are contracted to work on Haïti in the aftermath of a vicious earthquake that destroyed most of Haiti’s infrastructure one and a half year ago. You have been active on Haiti for a year now.
Your Director has asked you to sell your Volkswagen Ambulance Jeep/SUV. Helping Hands had to make some unexpected costs to cover and transport costs are steeply increasing; now the company is looking to make some budget cuts. For that reason, the organization needs to focus again on their core business: distributing food in hard to reach areas. Transporting wounded people was never your core business.
Your Director urges you to sell the VW Ambulance for the highest price possible. If you cannot get a good price, the organization needs to cut funding elsewhere in the logistics’ department, and this could impact both your personal car as well as the car of the Director. He has let you know on several occasions that he really doesn’t like that scenario.
Your VW Ambulance is four years old and works perfectly. The car has spent the first three years in Eastern-Europe and was relocated to Haiti for this mission last year. The big advantage of this ambulance is that it is customized to operate in extreme poor conditions (such as earthquake affected areas). It has, for example, extra suspension, special high quality tires (an additional set once bought not even needed once), and extra water supply on board. According to the in-house garage manager and its maintenance experts, a new Ambulance with the same features would cost €50.000 at least.
A local company has already expressed the desire to buy your Ambulance for €22.000. This is an acceptable price in principle, though you think that getting even more for this car would greatly please your director. It might even have positive consequences for your career.
Coincidentally, you spoke to one of your Canadian colleagues (that works for a Canadian company in the area) two weeks ago. S/he told you that they were also looking for a new ambulance. This morning, your Canadian contact that you know very well, (also from social activities) called you personally. S/he might want to buy the ambulance and would like to meet you to see the ambulance and perhaps even discuss a price.
Assignment:
First round, negotiate on price only! After the negotiation: please write down the following number:
– First offer
– Counter offer from the other party
– Final price (if indeed agreed upon)
–
The Ambulance Jeep
Role: You work as head of logistics for the Canadian Company “Care United”. Right now, you work on Haiti. Haiti suffered from a vicious earthquake one and a half year ago. You have been deployed there now for more than a year.
Your Director has asked you, as head of logistics, to buy an additional ambulance. This, because you have received an increasing amount of requests for the transportation of wounded people in the hard to reach areas. At the moment, you only have one ambulance riding around which given its old tires may become less reliable over time given the harsh road conditions. And maintenance and repair time & costs is an additional burden the company would rather live without. Your Director has asked you to look into second-hand options available on the island, because the costs of delivering a new ambulance to Haiti are high (around €50.000). It also is part of your organizational strategy to be as circular as possible.
In Port-au-Prince you have found a suitable ambulance. It is a customized Toyota Landcruiser that is five years old. A British company offers this ambulance for €28.000. That price is fixed. Two weeks ago though, you heard that the Dutch Company “Helping Hands” has a four year old Customized VW Ambulance they are looking to sell.
This morning, you spoke to your contact from the British company and they have the Toyota still on offer. It is a good car and matches what you are looking for. You decide to buy that car this afternoon. Before you go there though, you decided to pay a visit to your contact at the Dutch company, who you know very well (also from social activities).
You will buy the Dutch ambulance if it matches what you are looking for and if you can get it for less than the British Toyota. You will meet each other at the Dutch company’s offices this morning.
Assignment:
First round, negotiate on price only! After the negotiation: please write down the following number:
– First offer
– Counter offer from the other party
– Final price (if indeed agreed upon)