The topic of negotiation has fascinated me for 15 years. It is, in my view, the most multi-faceted discipline there is – one that plays a significant role in commercial success. Whenever money is being spent or saved, negotiation is involved. It seems obvious, then, that companies should engage seriously with this topic – in theory. But a closer look at most organisations tells a different story, and raises the question: why is negotiation so rarely treated as a strategic capability? In my experience, most CEOs do not view negotiation as a strategic capability. But why?

Negotiation is decentralised across the organisation

Negotiation takes place across many departments: procurement, sales, marketing, product management, operations, legal. In all of these areas, contracts, partnerships and deals are negotiated on a daily basis.

But every department, every team – indeed, almost every individual – has their own, often very firm, idea of what good negotiation looks like. Ask two CEOs how they define "negotiating well." For one, it might be the oft-cited but frequently vague "win-win." For the other, it might mean "not giving an inch – no matter what." The topic is, by its very nature, spread across the organisation. This decentralisation, combined with siloed thinking, often prevents a coherent, cross-functional approach – particularly in larger organisations.

There is another layer to this. Negotiation – especially in Switzerland – tends to be reduced to a handful of buzzwords: "communication," "empathy," or "win-win." These concepts are not wrong, but they are merely fragments of an extraordinarily complex discipline. This is hardly surprising, given that negotiation is neither formally taught in schools nor in most professional development programmes. It is typically a skill acquired on the job – sometimes consciously, sometimes not, depending on personal inclination. As a result, most people have no reliable way of assessing whether their approach is effective or not. Without a unit of measurement, even a ruler is useless. Scaled across an organisation of several hundred people, the result is a collection of different philosophies, habits and assumptions.

Negotiation has no clear owner

Decentralisation also explains the next structural problem: negotiation has no clear ownership within organisations. It exists, but only as a by-product. In procurement, it falls under supply chain excellence. In sales, it sits within sales excellence or closing. As a standalone competency, it almost never exists in its own right – it is always absorbed into something larger.

Who within an organisation knows the subject well enough to be accepted across departmental boundaries and genuinely add value? That question alone is a significant challenge. It also raises a harder one: in a field with so many competing definitions, who actually assesses expertise – and by what criteria? A strong closer is not necessarily a strong internal champion for the topic.

A sales manager with ten years of experience is convinced he negotiates well – because he has always closed deals. But closing deals does not prove that the negotiation was good. It only proves that an agreement was reached. What was left on the table is usually invisible.

Negotiation is almost impossible to measure

A further reason lies in the fact that negotiation performance is extremely difficult to measure. B2B negotiations involve so many variables – many of them context-dependent on any given day – that it is simply not possible to objectively assess how an alternative decision would have played out. A negotiation is nothing more than a sequence of small decision points: do we concede or not? Do we accept this offer or not? In hindsight, no one can ever know what would have happened, if a different path had been taken – or whether a different approach would have produced a better outcome. This applies equally to price negotiations, contract discussions, strategic partnerships and supplier or customer conversations.

Ultimately, asking whether "more was achievable" in a given negotiation requires a level of reflective engagement with the topic – or at least a nagging feeling that the chosen approach was not ideal. That requires both time and a baseline interest in the subject, neither of which can be taken for granted.

What cannot be measured is hard to scale

What is difficult to measure is also much harder to scale. Though scaling itself is not the core problem. An organisation can train hundreds of employees in negotiation – that is entirely feasible. But it only works if leadership acknowledges the importance of the topic and actively supports it internally. Without that support, momentum rarely builds. Combined with the difficulty of measuring success, the inevitable question arises: why bother?

Conclusion

Negotiation is simply too situational, too complex, too culturally variable and too difficult to standardise to be recognised as a strategic capability.

One could argue that the underlying question doesn't really matter. The goal is more important than the path – and that goal can be reached even with poor negotiation practice (though we would then be back to the question of what that actually means). But when a deal falls through, the failure is rarely attributed to poor negotiation. It is attributed to difficult market conditions, a challenging supplier, a demanding customer. The consequences of a poor negotiation outcome often only surface months or even years later – when agreed terms trigger renegotiations or suddenly escalate into conflicts.

Skilled and talented negotiators can achieve strong outcomes even under difficult conditions – they may even thrive in exactly those moments. But this reveals an additional structural problem that is frequently underestimated: a latent dependency on a small number of individuals. Imagine your best negotiator resigns tomorrow. Or falls ill. Or joins a competitor. How many of your current deals depend on that one person? Skilled negotiators are valuable – but an organisation that relies on individuals does not have a system. It has luck.

This also explains why the topic is so often reduced to what happens at the table. The negotiation conversation itself is more visible, more tangible. Everyone can relate to it – buying a second-hand car, or negotiating with your own children. That creates a shared reference point quickly. But as soon as an organisational dimension enters the picture, the conversation becomes more abstract. The need for explanation grows. The word "negotiation process" already sounds technical and unclear to many.

And yet, in most organisations, nothing will change. Not because the will is absent – but because the structural barriers are too high. Decentralisation, lack of ownership, difficulty of measurement: these factors reinforce one another. Without a conscious decision at C-level, negotiation will remain what it is today: a by-product.

Those who recognise the leverage of systematic negotiation secure today's results – and tomorrow's advantage.