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Dealmaking: The New Strategy of Negotiauctions
Based on broad research and detailed case studies, Dealmaking provides the jargon-free, empirically sound advice you need to close the deal.
Leading dealmaking scholar Guhan Subramanian specializes in understanding how deals work. As a Harvard Business School professor, he has spent years examining and teaching corporate dealmaking through two classic negotiation theory and auction theory. As he looked at real-world situations, however, he discovered that complex deals usually combine both negotiators are "fighting on two fronts"—across the table and on the same side—with known, unknown, or potential competitors.
In Dealmaking, Subramanian provides classroom-tested examples of "negotiauctions" as diverse as buying a house, haggling over the rights to the television show Frasier, or selling "toxic" assets into the U.S. government’s bailout fund. With each scenario, he identifies the specific moves that ensure success.
The first book to bring together auction and negotiation strategies in a meaningful way, Dealmaking is an indispensable guide to negotiating deals in the twenty-first century.
Leading dealmaking scholar Guhan Subramanian specializes in understanding how deals work. As a Harvard Business School professor, he has spent years examining and teaching corporate dealmaking through two classic negotiation theory and auction theory. As he looked at real-world situations, however, he discovered that complex deals usually combine both negotiators are "fighting on two fronts"—across the table and on the same side—with known, unknown, or potential competitors.
In Dealmaking, Subramanian provides classroom-tested examples of "negotiauctions" as diverse as buying a house, haggling over the rights to the television show Frasier, or selling "toxic" assets into the U.S. government’s bailout fund. With each scenario, he identifies the specific moves that ensure success.
The first book to bring together auction and negotiation strategies in a meaningful way, Dealmaking is an indispensable guide to negotiating deals in the twenty-first century.
- GenresBusinessNonfiction
243 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 4, 2020
27 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 30, 2021
It was OK. Way not in the same league as Getting to Yes.
I enjoyed reading the first case study of the renegotiation of the network license fee for Frasier. It was a story where I intimately know all of the dynamics and the players, including in particular the negotiator at the focus of the story, Marc Graboff, who is my former law partner. Seeing it all through the eyes of a business school professor was a bit disorienting, though I do think that Mr. Subramanian got most of it right. It was also odd because the business situation that it described is so yesterday. This kind of negotiation, which once was common for hit shows, is a relic of the past now that we live in the age of streaming.
I began losing patience in the sections on auction theory because the way deals get done in practice is almost never pure auction so that auction theory is largely irrelevant. Mr. Subramanian redeemed himself a bit when he acknowledged this in the chapter entitled "The Limits of Existing Theory". But then he goes on to suggest that his concept of negotiauctions solves the problems of existing theory. It is a bit better than the stuff in the first part of the book, but I still found it vague and unhelpful.
His thesis is that the dynamics of deals that have characteristics of both auctions and negotiations can be analyzed by looking at set up moves, rearranging moves and shutdown moves. He might as well have said that all deals have a beginning, middle and end. Maybe because I do this stuff all day long in my job it seems obvious to me. I don't know. Or maybe I'm missing something, but I came away from this book feeling that there isn't anything very profound here.
I enjoyed reading the first case study of the renegotiation of the network license fee for Frasier. It was a story where I intimately know all of the dynamics and the players, including in particular the negotiator at the focus of the story, Marc Graboff, who is my former law partner. Seeing it all through the eyes of a business school professor was a bit disorienting, though I do think that Mr. Subramanian got most of it right. It was also odd because the business situation that it described is so yesterday. This kind of negotiation, which once was common for hit shows, is a relic of the past now that we live in the age of streaming.
I began losing patience in the sections on auction theory because the way deals get done in practice is almost never pure auction so that auction theory is largely irrelevant. Mr. Subramanian redeemed himself a bit when he acknowledged this in the chapter entitled "The Limits of Existing Theory". But then he goes on to suggest that his concept of negotiauctions solves the problems of existing theory. It is a bit better than the stuff in the first part of the book, but I still found it vague and unhelpful.
His thesis is that the dynamics of deals that have characteristics of both auctions and negotiations can be analyzed by looking at set up moves, rearranging moves and shutdown moves. He might as well have said that all deals have a beginning, middle and end. Maybe because I do this stuff all day long in my job it seems obvious to me. I don't know. Or maybe I'm missing something, but I came away from this book feeling that there isn't anything very profound here.
December 26, 2021
Very interesting and a matter of fact book
February 4, 2026
Very good overview of the deal making process with compelling examples and analysis of strategies.
Must read for people working in corporate deal adjacent industries (IB, PE, Corporate Law)
Must read for people working in corporate deal adjacent industries (IB, PE, Corporate Law)
December 1, 2021
boring and too much derivation from a few case studies.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews