For effective commercial negotiation, an organisation must analyse and apply approaches to negotiate agreements successfully.

Understanding the key approaches to commercial negotiation—such as adversarial, integrative, collaborative, or accommodative—is fundamental to achieving successful outcomes. CIPS emphasises that negotiators must be able to select and apply the correct approach based on factors such as power balance, relationship importance, risk, and objectives. While understanding conflict, stakeholder power, and sourcing stages all support negotiation effectiveness, they are secondary to choosing the right negotiation approach itself. Without this core understanding, negotiators risk misalignment between strategy and context, leading to suboptimal or failed outcomes.