The U.S. business should have arranged the process so that the prospect of a deal with the most desirable Mexican partner would function as its BATNA in talks with the second most desirable partner, and so on. In short, doing so would have created the equivalent of a simultaneous four-party negotiation (structured as one U.S. firm negotiating in parallel
with each of the three Mexican firms) rather than three sequential two-party negotiations. This more promising 3-D setup would have greatly enhanced whatever 1-D cultural insight and tactical ingenuity the U.S. firm could muster.