Congrats to the global senior procurement executive, whose question earned him a bottle of fine wine.

In return for an extended contract, a customer (soliciting bids from two other suppliers with equivalent capabilities, sustainability and product specs) asked that we pass along 100% of our reductions in raw materials costs and process improvement during the life cycle of the contract. We want to increase margins, but we must retain our volumes as this is the most important customer in this product line portfolio.

Response by Rich Waldrop, lead tutor 

 Ask the client, "What's our firm's incentive to do anything?" If the response is, "You should always be doing process improvement," and your counter is, "Yes, but we have been, and we're at a point of diminishing returns," you could then say, "If you bring your engineering staff to our production line and discuss procurement improvements with our supply chain, and if we can find any ways to lower costs, we'll share the benefits 50/50."

Submit question, win wine

If the other party isn't exactly sure what you mean (or vice versa), bad things can happen: wasted time re-negotiating, splintered relationships, prolonged sales cycles, and even a reduced bottom line.