Conflict Resolution at the Place of Business Essay

Conflict Resolution at the Place of Business - Essay Example This complexity must be understood and overcome in order for both parties to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. The facts of the case are as follows: Our company (for this paper, "USCo"), a large, Midwest-based American medical company, had recently decided to increase its direct presence in the European healthcare market. Up to now, our company had some distributors in Europe, and some European countries in which we used distributors. While we intended to keep distributors in the smaller markets, such as Eire and Greece, we regarded the nine "major" countries as too important to leave to a distributor. The company we were negotiating with (for this paper, "FrenchCo") had been distributing our product, a line of sophisticated automation instruments for microbiology, for over 10 years in Italy and France. USCo had been successful with its automated instruments throughout the world, but was lagging against other key competitors in the European market. Of particular concern was our market share in Germany, France and Italy. In some European countries, such as the Nordic countries, we were direct and enjoyed a number one position in the automated segment of the market. We felt that FrenchCo, despite its strong reputat... Their ability to gain market share was unimpressive. We felt that FrenchCo's managers were hidebound and focused on "traditional" manual technologies. FrenchCo's viewpoint: FrenchCo had started with Louis Pasteur, and defined microbiology not just for France, but for the world. FrenchCo's mission was to offer the very best microbiology products, be they automated or manual, to the global market. Although FrenchCo was a smaller company than USCo, it was nevertheless a leader due to its history, its emphasis on quality, and its deep understanding of the science of microbiology. Expectations for the meeting: We at USCo could only guess what FrenchCo's attitudes were. We guessed that they knew we were unhappy with our current distribution results, and that they had watched us develop direct distribution in European countries around them. We felt that they were trying to develop their own automated instruments, but did not know how far along they were in the development. After the negotiations were completed, we hired one of the FrenchCo managers, and learned a good deal about FrenchCo's expectations. As it turned out, FrenchCo was developing an instrument, but did not want us to know that. While they were also unhappy with the business results, they felt that they could learn about our technologies and use that knowledge to effectively compete against us. They also felt that we would fail if we came to the French market without them. They were not particularly concerned about the Italian market. Start of the Negotiations We suggested the meeting time, but FrenchCo chose the venue. We met in a leafy suburb of Paris. The President met us at the door after a 40-minute wait. We were expecting to be led to a conference room.