Controlling the Negotiation, Not Just the Price

Challenge

Most companies enter negotiations with a clear price target. Negotiations are not just about price, they are about shaping the total business plan across price, promotions, and growth investments.

For the Magnum team in France, the challenge was not defining ambition but controlling the full P&L impact of dozens of moving pieces across customers, while maintaining consistency within the country and across European buying alliances.

We supported the team in bringing structure and control into the negotiation process.

Solution

At the core was a negotiation tracker that translated every commercial decision into P&L impact. Instead of treating price, promotions, and investments separately, the tool allowed the team to simulate their combined effect, making trade-offs explicit and comparable across customers.

This enabled a shift from reactive negotiation to deliberate decision-making. The team could assess, in real time, whether additional investments were justified by incremental value, and where to push back or reallocate.

We also ensured alignment beyond individual customers. By consolidating views across accounts, the team could steer decisions at a total market level, avoiding unintended price gaps within France and inconsistencies across European buying alliances.

Throughout the negotiation, we worked alongside the team on offer construction, scenario building, creating positive mix effects and profit pool simulations, ensuring each move was grounded in its full financial impact.

Results

The team gained clear visibility on the P&L impact of each negotiation decision, allowing them to move from reactive discussions to deliberate trade-offs across price and volume

Decision-making became more consistent across customers. Negotiations shifted from isolated price talks to managing the total value equation, supported by real-time scenario thinking.

As a result, investments were allocated more deliberately, leading to a balanced outcome with both growth and profitability on target.