Thanks to Commitment Matters:  Negotiation Practices in the Commodity World for pointing us to the U.K. Telegraph's provocative article Supermarkets & suppliers: Inside the price war by Jonathan Sibun and James Hall, discussing ruthless negotiation techniques employed by the big supermarket chains in the U.K.  -- like the "Flaming Lamborghini" described below.

My only response is this -- winning at any price isn't worth the price.  Whether you see your customer again makes little difference.  Tomorrow morning, it's your face in the mirror you're required to take a hard look at.  My suspicion?  The "bosses" who direct their staff to negotiate in this manner couldn't or wouldn't do it themselves and those who are doing it are either suffering wage slaves or sociopaths.   

The Flaming Lamborghini

Thought to derive its name from the restaurant in which it was coined - the same London eatery frequented by the infamous Flaming Ferrari City bankers - the Lamborghini is believed to be the model used by Tesco.

The Flaming Lamborghini is a grid-based negotiating tool in which the supermarket buyer takes the supplier on an emotional and psychological roller-coaster ride.

This is done be flip-flopping the salesperson between ‘complacency' and ‘war'.

One minute the buyer is their best friend, the next their worst enemy. This is essentially the clock-face model writ small.

The goal for the supermarket buyer is to make the suppliers feel that they are at the point of ‘maximum performance', while secretly making sure they don't stay there.

A Tesco spokesman said he was unfamiliar with the technique.

For the full article, click here.