Overview

Based on broad research and detailed case studies, Dealmaking provides the jargon-free, empirically sound advice you need to close the deal. Leading dealmaking scholar Guhan Subramanian specializes in understanding how deals work. As a Harvard Business School professor, he has spent years examining and teaching corporate dealmaking through two classic lenses: negotiation theory and auction theory. As he looked at real-world situations, however, he discovered that complex deals usually combine both approaches: negotiators are "fighting on two fronts"—across the table and on the same side—with known, unknown, or potential competitors. In Dealmaking, Subramanian provides classroom-tested examples of "negotiauctions" as diverse as buying a house, haggling over the rights to the television show Frasier, or selling "toxic" assets into the U.S. government’s bailout fund. With each scenario, he identifies the specific moves that ensure success. The first book to bring together auction and negotiation strategies in a meaningful way, Dealmaking is an indispensable guide to negotiating deals in the twenty-first century.