Artem Koverznev, Global Procurement & Negotiation Leader at BSH Home Appliances, in an AJOT interview offers insight into how procurement negotiations have evolved in this period of business uncertainty.
Ongoing supply chain volatility, including US import tariffs, raw material constraints and AI-driven market shifts, is forcing procurement specialists to rethink long-standing negotiation models, traditional, intuition-based tactics increasingly breaking down under such conditions.
Artem Koverznev, Global Procurement & Negotiation Leader at BSH Home Appliances - a joint-venture between German groups Bosch and Siemens, has emerged as a leading proponent of data-driven, ‘Six Sigma’-based negotiation frameworks.
In an interview with AJOT, Koverznev highlights how procurement professionals are adapting negotiation and supplier governance models to an operating environment increasingly prone to change and uncertainty. He began by providing an insight into procurement at BSH.
Global Sourcing
A manufacturer of ovens, refrigerators, washers, dryers and dishwashers, BSH had an annual turnover in 2024 of €15.3 billion ($18.23 billion).
It operates from 39 manufacturing plants, employs more than 57,000 staff and is represented in around 50 countries.
The group combines product development and industrial manufacturing with an international sales footprint. Procurement plays a central role in keeping supply, cost, and performance stable across very different markets and product requirements.
Europe is a core market, and Asia, particularly China. Other regions, including North America, also contribute significantly.
“Home appliances combine ‘heavy ’ industrial inputs with precision components. Typical supplies include raw materials (steel, plastics, non-ferrous metals), mechanical components (hinges, frames, fasteners), electromechanical parts (motors, pumps), electronics (control units, sensors), as well as complete modules and subassemblies,” Koverznev explained.
BSH’s sourcing is global by nature: some items are sourced locally to support regional plants and responsiveness, while many strategic components come from international supplier networks (often across Europe and Asia) based on technology capability, quality maturity, capacity, and total cost.
“This global structure is exactly why volatility – in relation to energy, commodities, logistics and currency disruptions – hits procurement so directly,” he underlined.
‘More Structured, Measurable Approach’
Unlike generic best practices, Koverznev’s approach to procurement negotiations has been developed and implemented through concrete ‘Six Sigma’ projects with measurable financial and performance outcomes.
Six Sigma is a set of management techniques intended to improve business processes by greatly reducing the probability that an error or defect will occur.
“I took something that is often driven by personal style and intuition and helped implement a more structured, measurable approach so results become more consistent and less ‘person-dependent,’ especially under volatility,” he said.
“Six Sigma is best known from manufacturing and quality. You reduce variation, define what ‘good’ looks like, find root causes, and keep the process under control. I applied that same logic to negotiations and supplier performance governance by rolling out a repeatable framework that teams can use across categories and suppliers. A simple way to describe it is the Six Sigma cycle, DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control, translated into procurement language.”
Building Blocks
To make this operational rather than theoretical, Kovernzev implemented three practical building blocks. Firstly, a cost-driver and index logic to replace opinion-based price debates.
“Instead of negotiating around feelings (‘this seems too expensive’), we prepare a transparent view of the supplier’s main cost drivers (materials, energy, labor, yield, logistics) and use relevant indices to separate real market movement from noise. This creates credible negotiation ranges and helps both sides stay grounded when volatility is high.”
The second building block is BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). “BATNA simply means: ‘What is my credible alternative if we don’t agree?’
“I embedded this into preparation so negotiators enter discussions knowing their options, thresholds, and escalation paths rather than making reactive decisions at the table.”
The third building block focuses on KPI-linked commercial mechanisms to make performance tangible. Koverznev explained that while companies track supplier KPIs, they alone often don’t change behavior.
“I helped integrate operational KPIs (quality stability, delivery reliability, responsiveness, flexibility) into contract and pricing logic meaning the commercial outcome reflects measurable performance.
“Many organizations have parts of this – a cost model here, a scorecard there. Far fewer connect negotiation preparation, KPI governance, and contract mechanisms into a closed-loop system that is scalable across regions and categories. That ‘end-to-end operationalization’ is what I’ve focused on implementing.”
Koverznev also emphasised the failings of ‘intuition-based’ negotiations under sustained volatility.
“Intuition works when the environment is stable and past experience reliably predicts the future. Under sustained volatility, cost drivers swing rapidly and risks shift faster than internal habits.”
Two “predictable” problems appear, he noted. There is “an anchoring to outdated reference points” where people keep negotiating around last year’s logic, even when drivers have moved materially.
The second concerns “inconsistent decisions,” as a result of different negotiators interpreting the same situation differently, which reduces credibility with suppliers and creates internal friction.
“A structured approach forces continuous recalibration based on observable drivers, scenario ranges, and documented trade-offs improving speed, consistency, and credibility.”
Overall Value Rather Than External Variables’
One might assume that when BSH sits down with its customers in the US the decline in the dollar, notably against the euro and US import tariffs of 15% on goods from the European Union, would be at the forefront of the negotiations.
However, Koverznev argues that macroeconomic factors such as currency movements and tariff regimes form part of the broader operating environment for international companies.
“In customer discussions, the focus is typically on overall value including reliability, service levels, and long-term partnership considerations rather than on any single external variable. From a procurement perspective, the emphasis is on structural resilience and predictability, not short-term fluctuations.”
He also played down the impact of a scenario where BSH’s products became too expensive due to currency and tariff factors leading to its US customers turning to cheaper goods from Asia, notably China.
“Price sensitivity is present in every market, and global sourcing alternatives are always considered. That said, purchasing decisions for complex consumer goods in the US are rarely driven by price alone. Product performance, compliance, after-sales support, and supply reliability remain decisive factors. Competitiveness, therefore, is best understood in terms of total value, not simply unit cost.”
As for the role AI is likely to play in procurement, including that for logistics services, Koverznev argues that it is increasingly becoming an enabler of better decision-making, rather than a replacement for human expertise.
“Its strongest impact is likely to be in areas such as data consolidation, pattern recognition, scenario analysis, and performance monitoring. By improving transparency and consistency, AI allows procurement teams to focus more on strategic negotiation, supplier relationships, and risk management.”
