03.12.2018 - The Canada-China panda acquisition negotiation

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During this last role-play I was John Smith, the CEO of the Toronto Zoo. First, I had to negotiate with Clement Dupont, the CEO of the Calgary Zoo in order to find an agreement to enable the both of us to welcome a pair of giant pandas in our zoos, and it was not easy since we both wanted to welcome the pandas first. During this first part, Dr. Ming-Tat-Li, Chair of the Giant Panda Acquisition Task Force was really helpful since she tried to help both the Toronto Zoo and the Calgary Zoo to get what they want by making some concessions. 
Then we had to work as a team in order to find an agreement with the Chinese team, and negotiate with the Chinese team was the hardest part since they were 6 (we were only 3) and they were not very cooperative. Indeed, from the beginning to the end, the Chinese imposed many rules to us that totally broke down our strategy. Therefore, we took a first break in order to find a new strategy about which zoo will welcome the pandas first, the duration we will be able to host them without losing money, our last offer considering our limited financial resources. Thus, we did a lot of concessions, but when we came back to the negotiation table to show to Chinese that we had understood their request and that we were ready to make an effort, they added new rules that jeopardized our new offer. So we took another break to consider our financial availability. We asked Dr. Ming-Tat-Li to enter in the room 2 minutes before us in order to show to Chinese her empathy and explain alone, the benefits they had to gain from this partnership. They kept being offensive and even offered to work with the Toronto Zoo only, an offer that could have directly affected the relationship between Toronto Zoo and Calgary Zoo, that is why we refused it. At the end of the negotiation process, we understood that the Chinese main concern was the well-being of pandas but not the financial question, whereas the costs were the main issue for our team. 
Understanding that, we finally achieved a 20-years agreement (10 years per zoo, first in the Toronto Zoo and then in the Calgary Zoo), including a $500 000 payment per year for the two pandas and $800 000 per year in case a cub would be born. However, if a cub would be born, the Calgary Zoo would choose to give back the pandas and the cub without receiving a new couple of pandas (this way, the zoo would not lose money). We also decided that the Toronto Zoo will be in charge of the delivery costs whereas the Calgary Zoo will be in charge of the advertising for both zoos.


I think that this negotiation process was the most difficult one since we had to face many situations we were not prepared to manage. At the end of the game, I think that neither the Canadian side nor the Chinese side was satisfied, so the negotiation process was not a success.

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