Arab Negotiation Culture

Linked to the storyboard “a Dutch negotiating adventure in Egypt” it is also interesting to dive a little deeper in the Arabian negotiating culture. The Arab world, including Egypt, is known for their long historical traditions in negotiating and doing trades. To create a win-win result, which is the most preferable in these region, good understanding of their negotiating skills is necessary. For a overview of these skills we refer to figure 1 below.


Figure 1. Overview negotiating skills Arab world (1).

De points viewed in figure 1 are very essential when negotiating with Arab business partners. We will explain these points further.

1. Understand the interests of your Arab business partners.
Things which are important for Arabs are frequently not expressed in that way. Often little things like for example inviting and training high-level Arab engineers at your European plant, turn out to be nearly as important as completing a project in time. Personal contact is of great value in the Arab world and is also needed to understand and recognize their priorities correctly. One should be aware of the fact that Arab businessmen regularly tell more about their concerns or requests when having a cup of coffee than addressing it openly in a meeting

2. Prepare your strategy and negotiations communications.
For developing the right strategies and tactics you have to understand the hierarchy structures of the Arab counterpart.

3. Understand your BATNA / Test the Arab BATNA.
BATNA means: Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.
Explaining this term in its simplest way, it means that your BATNA is the choice you can make to walk away instead of concluding a specific deal, because your BATNA is a better outcome than the expected outcome of the negotiation.
BATNA also is the measure of the balance of power in a negotiation, because when other parties need you in order to achieve their objectives, you have a strong BATNA (and strong negotiating circumstances).
One should be aware of the fact that having a strong BATNA can be positive in terms of negotiating, but can also turn out to be dramatically. It is very important to stay friendly and behave as a gentleman even when having a strong BATNA, because this is the behaviour Arab people prefer in all situations. Often we see that countries which score higher on individualism instead of collectivism, show a kind of arrogance when having a strong BATNA. Their “take it or live it” mentality can lead to the fact that a pride Arab businessman will leave the negotiations forever.

4. Negotiate with results and relationship in mind; create an enduring agreement.
When doing business with the Arab world, one should always stress on the importance of relationships. Focussing mainly on getting the deal done will not have the same (positive) effect as it often has in the Western European Countries and the US.

5. Remain “principled” with commitment in the four above mentioned points of attention.

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