Abstract

InterNeg Research Papers INR 02/04 With the rapid growth of electronic commerce, there is growing demand and great potential for online negotiation services. However, like other dot.com companies, it is unclear whether e-negotiation services will success by providing real business value and making profit. In this paper we propose a high-level e-negotiation business model and use it to analyze key issues for the success of these services. Specifically, we focus on the value proposition of e-negotiation systems and examine it through surveying potential market segments. While previous literature asses the efficiency and effectiveness of various online negotiations support methods, this exploratory research examines the online negotiation service itself and its potential from business users ’ perspective. Our survey demonstrates that there is a low awareness for e-negotiation services though organizations spend large amounts on negations each year. Moving some of the traditional face to face negotiations to the Internet sphere could reduce the associated costs. In accordance with our assumptions, the benefits of e-negotiations are clear to the surveyed managers and so are the challenges. Most mangers believe that there is a great market potential for online negotiations services and that they will use it in the future as services mature. Based on the survey, we identify critical factors to the success of online negotiation services and suggest some ways to remove the hurdles and create a critical mass of users.

Citations