'How This Candidate Turned a 22-Week MRI Lead Time into a Winning $2.5 Million Deal'

OK, OK Let me think of it. Yeah. So. Uh, last year, again, uh, this example is from my STM, uh, role. I was, uh, negotiating a very big deal, uh, of $2.5 million consisting of one MRI and the cath lab with one of the customers. This deal was almost at the negotiation stage and chance of winning this deal. Sorry, chance of winning this deal was, uh, uh, low because, uh, my competitor G was very aggressive in terms of pricing and almost quoting 4% less price than us. However, in the last negotiation meeting, customer came up with just

Yeah, so 4%, it was just 4%, but, uh, when we talk about $2.5 million dollar deal, uh, it's a huge number in absolute terms. So yeah, so, um, the in the last meeting customer came up with a new update that they needed the MRI within 14 weeks. So this was a very strange kind of update. I was well aware of the Philips lead time of MRI because our MRI comes from Europe. Uh, the MRI used to come from, uh, USA like this. India don't manufacture the, uh, MRI. So, uh, I was well aware of the Phil Phillips lead time of 22 weeks, and this was a make or break situation for every OEM where we just have got only a few hours to commit, uh, whether we can do it or not. Uh, I thought through, uh, some of the solutions. Uh, first, obvious reaction was to reach out to the supply chain team to get the best possible, uh, lead time. But also, uh, that in that scenario I just had a few hours to commit when I didn't get the answer from the, from them. I thought through some, uh, some few solutions, uh, uh, to provide that. I took the risk and committed that we would provide this MRI within 14 weeks as this was the last resort to win this deal. Now task in hand was to decrease the uh lead time from 22 weeks to 14 weeks. As my first action step, I broke the, broke down the whole timeline of MRI into smaller segments and mapped the state. All the stakeholders of each segments right from the production unit till the delivery time, and I reached out to those stakeholders. I showcased them the importance of the customer, more specifics about the deal, and the critical criticality of this situation. Through great stakeholder management and internal preparedness for every negotiation. I was able to convince the factory to reduce the production time by 1.5 weeks and also was able to convince them. To change the freight from sea to air, which ultimately saved us 4 weeks. Rest 2.5 weeks were optimized through internal process documentation improvement and uh project uh team gave me one more week of help by implementing or by installing the MRI in a faster timeline. Though I had Plan B in my mind, uh, Plan B and Plan C in my mind, however, I tried sticking to Plan A because this was the lowest cost, uh, uh, for us, and finally I was able to deliver the MRI within 14 weeks, and cus customer was well aware of the global supply chain issues which has been going on. They appreciated the efforts, and this particular incident helped me in maintaining a great relationship with the customer.

So I thought through 3 plans, uh, before taking my decisions. That

Correct, correct, correct. So, uh, two things, uh, uh, I had in my mind. Uh, first of all, this, while, because we, uh, we were the sales people, we only configured the whole MRI, what software is needed. I knew that, uh, this, uh, particular MIA would be coming from C. The costing which we had taken at that particular time was C. If I change it from sea to air, that would make, uh, that would save 4 weeks. So out of 8 weeks, 4 weeks have come from here. I also knew that factory generally gets the priority which one they have to, uh, make it first. If I show them the criticality, I could. Reduce the timeline by almost 1 to 2 weeks, which I had done in the past. Rest, uh, 2 weeks, I had to take, uh, the rest and I had to. Think of that particular uh optimization afterwards. I had to take risks because time was the criticality at that particular point in time, and I had to take the decision without thinking much on that.

Right, right, right, very apt question, uh, Brandon. So as I told you in the my, uh, answer also that I very well prepared for every intern, uh, uh, internal negotiation. The biggest leverage was that when I prepared a very one pager account plan of the customer, what this customer is, how has what business they have given in the past, and what are their future projects that give the potential upside of the business in the future. And why this, uh, timeline was critical because basically, uh, the question was also like this that why they needed the only MRI in 14 weeks because we knew that Chief Minister of that estate is scheduled to come in within that period of time and I showed them the criticality that it's not in their customer hands. Customer can't wait. It's. It's outside their control. Uh, Chief Minister is coming within the 14 weeks. That's why they needed that. So I showed them the customer, uh, what has been the customer deals, what, what are their plans, how this deal became critical for us, and how big is the deal. This was a $122.5 million dollar deal. Average deal in India used to remain 1 to $1.5 million almost $1 million but this deal was very big. I showed them all these things.

Got it, got it.

was, I don't. Yeah, I, I, I, you, you said it correct. It's around 1, most of the deals used to remain, uh, less than $1.2 million dollar deal, but since I was handling key accounts, most of our deals, uh, used to remain very high. That's why it was the $2.5 million dollars.

Sorry, can you repeat?

Yeah, yeah, so, uh, what you happen that whenever, uh, whenever I got the purchase order for next 14 weeks I scheduled a biweekly call with all the stakeholders, uh, so, uh, and every time, uh, every time I used to give the, the, uh, subject line. Those stakeholder and uh tag those stakeholders with that subject line that if that subject is there in the particular meeting those stakeholders have to join. So every uh every biweekly in in the biweekly meeting I used to get the status update of what has been the position, how it has been moving.