Superior Systems and Capitol State Chemical Case Study

PART I

Superior Systems is an IT consulting firm specializing in network integration, focusing on the

technical universe of servers, network operating systems, and internetworking. Their motto is
“Superior Systems for Superior Results.” The three sales executives and ten consultants at
Superior Systems hold a joint meeting weekly to discuss upcoming projects and opportunities. At
a recent meeting, John Ryan, a “relationship manager” at Superior, mentioned that one of his
follow-up sales calls this week was at Capitol State Chemical, the largest employer in town: “I
saw a notice in the local business journal a couple of weeks ago mentioning that they were
consolidating all their workers into one new building. I guessed that they might need some
consulting help to plan the IT part of the move, so I called one of my contacts over there and she
got me in to see Ron Gimble, the director of network architecture. I had a ‘getting to know you’
meeting with him last week, and now he’s invited us back.”

Nick, the managing consultant, asked: “Who from the technical side should go with you?
Sandy?”

Sandy, the network designer on the technical team, said: “Yeah, I want to go! They’ve got some
cool stuff there!”

John told the team: “I want Sandy for the technical piece, but I also need someone who can dig
in with the client and understand the politics and culture over there. This would be our first big
services deal with these guys and we need to excel. Who has the best interviewing skills?”

Nick volunteered to go, saying: “I want to understand for myself what they think we can do to
help them. Team, what do we know about this client? What hardware and software do they use?
Do they use other IT consulting services now? What’s their business, who are their customers?”
They spent another ten minutes reviewing the background for this opportunity. Nick persuaded
John and Sandy that it would be a good idea for them to do a bit of homework on this prospect,
advising them to check out the CapState website and to do some research on the stock price and
the chemical industry. Then the team moved on to the rest of the meeting.

On the day John, Sandy, and Nick were scheduled to meet the client, Nick requested a fifteen-
minute preparation meeting, saying: “John, this is your show, so just review with us, what’s my
role in this meeting and what’s Sandy’s role?”

“I just hope you can probe the client a little bit,” John replied. “Help me see if there’s really a
project here. I haven’t been able to find out whether they’re interviewing other consultants or
whether we have a good shot at this deal. I want Sandy there just in case it gets technical.”

“Sandy,” said Nick, “please take notes of the meeting. I’m going to try to keep the conversation
focused on the expectations rather than technical issues, so if you could scribe our conversation.”

Ron Gimble’s assistant walked John, Nick, and Sandy into Ron’s office, saying: “Ron, these are
the IT consultants.”
Ron was standing over a large meeting table, looking at a sheaf of blueprints: “John, nice to see
you again, thanks for stopping by.” Ron gestured toward the drawings: “This is it, the CapState
Tower. Did you know that CapState leases 18 percent of the office space in this city? Or that we
have 14,000 employees in twelve locations just within the city limits and another 5,000 scattered
around the suburbs? We got sick of paying rent and decided to build our own building. We just
signed the financing package last week.”

“You seem very proud,” said John.

“Proud but nervous. Nineteen thousand employees means about 15,000 desktop PCs. Our R&D
team uses a UNIX server and about fifty special graphic workstations for chemical design.
We’ve got e-mail, groupware, Internet connectivity, a website, and a PC training lab for our
customers, all in different buildings. We hired IBM to move the data center, but the network,
servers, desktops ... there’s no way we can support our ongoing business activity and do this
move ourselves. We need some outside assistance.”

Nick noted that Ron expressed the problem as not having enough resources to keep the business
running and do this project simultaneously. Nick feels that it’s important to understand what
motivates a client to seek outside help; he will use the information to choose consultants for this
engagement. Plus it is an indicator of the client’s view of the state of the internal IT organization.

John did the introductions and chatted briefly about Superior Systems. He described Nick’s role
as managing consultant and requested permission for Nick to ask a few questions.

“Ron,” said Nick, “thanks for the opportunity to chat about this move. It seems like a challenge
for your organization. I’ve done these before and they’re not easy. When do you expect the
building to be ready for your folks to move in?”

“We’ve already broken ground,” replied Ron. “They’re predicting sixteen months. It seems like a
long way away, but....”

“I understand your concern,” Nick said. “In a large, technology-driven enterprise like yours,
there are innumerable details that must be considered to guarantee the success of a complex
project like this. Sandy is our network technology genius, and she’ll work with your team to
prepare a comprehensive technical move plan. But right now I’m very interested in
understanding your business. I’ve never worked with a chemical design firm before.”

As Ron had displayed pride in the new building, he now displayed pride in his organization. By
giving Ron the opportunity to explain their product development cycle, Nick showed that he was
interested in the business context, not just the technical aspects. He also mentored John and
Sandy, teaching them that it’s critical to understand the client’s business and to give the client an
opportunity to display feelings about his or her organization. Good or bad, Nick knew, the
client’s attitude is instructive for the consultant about to take on an engagement.

Nick reviewed with Ron some of the details of the CapState organization, asking questions:
“What do you think an IT consulting firm like ours can do to help you?”
“Which parts of this move project will your team handle?”
“Are you looking for technical assistance, project management, or both?”
“Will your team design the network infrastructure in the new building, or will the consultants
you select assist?”
“What other departments or managers will the consultant be working with?”
“Are there other IT projects that are ongoing at the same time as the move?”
“What concerns you about this move; what do you fear can go wrong?”

Nick gathered lots of important details in a short time. Even though Ron was interviewing them
as technical consultants, all of Nick’s questions were focused on the client’s expectations,
constraints, feelings, and business. Nick felt confident that, when the time came, the consulting
team and CapState’s technical crew could get together and work out the technical details. He
wanted to be sure that he had a measure of the client and the project, that the client’s
expectations were reasonable, that the project was a good fit for Superior, and that he could
deliver successfully. He counted as good signs that Ron had the blueprints there for their review,
that he had set aside uninterrupted time to meet with them, and that he answered Nick’s
questions in a straightforward and open manner.

After Nick had asked questions, John asked Ron, “How will your selection process work?”

“We’ve been chatting with a couple of other consulting firms,” said Ron. “We’ve sent out a short
request for proposal to the firms we think are contenders. You should receive it today or
tomorrow. We’ll have a short lead time on the RFP, because we want to engage someone on this
soon.”

Finally, Nick asked Ron, “Would it be all right if Sandy got in touch with some of your network
engineers, just so we could understand your environment a bit better, to write a bid that fits your
needs?” Ron was obliging and gave Sandy his lead technician’s number.

When they arrived back at the office, Nick spent a few minutes with Sandy and John to review
the meeting. “So, what do you think? Is this a good fit for us?” Nick asked.

“Are you kidding?” asked John. “This could be huge!”

“Does any of it concern you?” asked Nick. “What about you, Sandy?”

“Well, yeah,” she replied, “there are a few things. Fifteen thousand desktops is a lot! I guess we
can get some college kids to help us with the inventory and disconnect, but it’s going to need a
lot of project management. Also those UNIX boxes and special workstations might be a
challenge.”

“Come on!” exclaimed John. “We can do this! This could be a great customer!”
“Yes, it could,” Nick agreed, “but only if we do this one right. I just want to make sure that we
think this through up front before we spend a lot of time proposing and planning for a project
that we can’t deliver.”

“Okay,” said John. “As soon as I get the RFP I’ll schedule a planning session, and we can put a
proposal together.”

Nick asked Sandy to transcribe the notes from the meeting. Using Sandy’s notes, he sat down
with John and wrote a follow-up letter to Ron, thanking him for the time, reiterating in summary
what the project was, and informing him that Superior Solutions would deliver to him by the
following Friday a proposal to assist CapState with their move.

John rushed into Nick’s office the next morning with the CapState RFP in hand

“Here it is! It looks like they’ve done a great job of outlining their needs. Let’s pull the team
together for a meeting and see how we need to respond.”

“It’s not quite that easy,” Nick laughed. “The consultants are all out billing, thankfully! And
hopefully the sales team is out with their customers as well. I’ll have to figure out who we want
in the room, and then schedule a meeting.”

John interrupted: “I don’t think you get it! This is a huge deal for us! There are three other firms
in there that I know of, and they’re all making this a high priority project! Let’s get Liz to page
everyone and have them take a break from their current assignments to come in here and....”

“Okay, okay, John, just calm down for a second. I understand the importance of this, and I want
this deal as much as you do. I can’t just pull folks away from commitments we’ve already made
to propose on a deal we haven’t even scoped yet. Give me a little while to review the RFP, put
together my initial list of questions and ideas, and I’ll ask Liz to reach out to everyone and see
when they can get in here. We’ll get this done, I promise you.”

Nick distributed a copy of the RFP and his initial notes to everyone that evening via e-mail and
scheduled a lunch meeting to start developing a response. At the meeting, he began by saying, “I
asked each of you to attend because I want everyone to agree on an approach to this project.

CapState can be a great client, and this move has huge visibility in town. We can really shine if
we win it and deliver well, but there’s a huge risk if we take it on and can’t execute. We’ve done
some small server-room moves before, but nothing of this magnitude, and I want consensus from
everyone in this room that we can do this before we even propose.”

John spoke up immediately: “Nick, this list of concerns you published is really making me
uncomfortable. You dig down into every little detail and make it seem like this project is just
impossible. This is a move project, that’s all. We’re picking a bunch of stuff up and moving it
across the street. We’re not even moving the stuff; they’ve hired a moving company to do that.
All we’re doing is counting it, unplugging it, reconnecting it on the other side, and testing it. I
don’t understand why this has to be so complicated.”

Sandy chimed in immediately: “Let’s not trivialize this. There are a lot of unanswered questions
here. They say their stuff is ‘scattered through multiple departments and locations,’ but they
don’t even list them. Are there five locations or fifty? Are they central or all over the place?

They want to ensure no disruption. How do we ensure that? Do they mean they want us to build
a whole parallel network, or just try our best to get everything running after the move?”

Adam, the firm’s application specialist, spoke up next: “They say they have a complete asset
management database. I’ve heard that one before! If it’s so complete how come in the next line
they say they have ‘about’ sixty servers, ‘about’ twenty-five jukeboxes, and ‘about’ fifteen
scanners?”

Nick broke in: “Okay, let’s do this in a structured way. John, I understand you want this deal,
and so do we all. The client will appreciate that we’ve thought this through and that we’re
focusing on the successful delivery. That’s our key selling point. Team, let’s start at the top and
put together our list of concerns.”

Nick facilitated the team work session, leading them through the RFP and recording the
questions and ideas that were generated. Some examples of the questions generated included:

 What does CapState mean by “scattered locations”? Would they provide a list?
 How did they define “no disruption”?
 What data does the asset management system capture? How current is it?
 How do they expect to move R&D without any interruption? Was this an example of
unrealistic expectations?
 What special problems did the production department pose?
 CapState lists certain skills as being required, such as video conferencing, IP design, and
voice communications. What are their expectations of services we’ll provide in those
areas?
 They state they want bidders to provide “hot spares.” Does this imply that we’re taking
responsibility for hardware maintenance in the move?
 Will CapState assemble a steering committee for escalation of project issues?
 What are the specific roles and responsibilities of the selected vendor and of CapState’s
IT teams?

After working through the RFP in detail, Nick asked for a show of hands of those who thought
the firm should bid on this project. Although a clear majority voted to bid, a couple of the
consultants disagreed.

“I just think this is too amorphous to bid on now. Without answering some of these questions, I
see a lot of risk here,” said Tim, the desktop specialist.
“I agree,” said Sara, the strongest project manager on the team. “Who here has ever dealt with
UNIX molecular-modeling software before? Who has ever moved sixty servers? Who’s
relocated 15,000 desktops? With this many open questions, this thing makes me really nervous.”

“How about if we bid this as an assessment and discovery project?” Nick suggested. “We could
sell them on the idea that they’ll need to do an assessment with whomever they select, and that
they’ll get a worthwhile deliverable out of it even if they decide to pick someone else for the
move.”

“I don’t like it,” said John. “The other firms are all going to bid a fixed price. Ron will see that
and assume we don’t have confidence in our ability to do this.”

“I’ll help you sell it to Ron,” Nick replied. “I believe I can convince him that this approach
shows that we’re interested in delivering a quality engagement, not just selling the job.”

Nick led the team to agreement that an assessment approach was the right thing and composed a
rough draft that evening. He circulated it for comment and modification, and John and Nick
presented the finished proposal to Ron Gimble at CapState the next day. Nick explained their
concept of performing an assessment project in order to better understand the circumstances and
requirements of the move. Ron was noncommittal, but accepted the proposal graciously and told
them to expect a call within the week.

Questions on Part I of the Case

1. Which department is typically responsible for marketing of consultancy services in a
consulting firm? What are the skills required for marketing of consulting service?

Answer:
 Sales team and relationship manager.

Skills:

 Advisory:-

Focus on the Relationship

Clearly Define Your Role
Visualize Success.
You Advise, They Decide.
Be Oriented Toward Results.

 Technical:-
 Business:-
 Communication:-
 Interviewing skills
 2. Who/ which department is typically responsible for converting leads into specific
proposals to be submitted to the client organization?

Answer:
 Managing Consultant
 Technical team,
 Project manager.
 Relationship manager.

3. Where from (which specific individuals/ departments/ teams/ systems) are inputs
provided to the team responsible for writing the proposal to ensure that a quality,
competitive proposal has been submitted to the client organization?

Answer:
 Technical manager from client who shares the business current state and requirement.
 Technical team of client who provide more specific technical inputs.

4. What background information about the client organization can be relevant for the
consulting team prior to proceeding for detailed discussion with the client in the first
phase?

Answer:
 Context of the client’s overall business strategy.
 A clear understanding of the business situation.
 Understand the politics and culture of the client.

5. From the consulting firm’s point of view, what would be the focus of the first interaction
meeting with the client organization?

Answer:

 Project issues, such as objectives, scope, fee arrangements, etc.

 Business Objective
 Preliminary schedule
 Information about other major projects.
  Decision criteria.

6. What are various typical selection processes used by client organizations to select
consultants?

Answer:

 Initial engagement with consulting firms.

 Probable contenders are identified.
 Request for proposal (RFP) is sent.
 Subsequent meetings to evaluate the RFP.
 Deal is finalized considering the best suitable consultant for the job.

7. What kind of perception conflicts if any can be expected within a consulting firm with
regard to dealing with the client organization in this first phase?

Answer:

 Conflict between expectation and capabilities.

 Conflict between the technical team and sales team.

8. What is understood by a Facilitated Work Session (FWS) and why it is an important

method in the consulting tool kit?

Answer:

Facilitated work sessions are collaborative group meetings that bring relevant business,

technical and support groups together and guide them through a structured process to produce a
specific project output or deliverable.

 Facilitated work session is meeting with all team members to deep dive and brainstorm
clients requirement based on RFP.
 Questions and idea generated during the session is recorded.
 These questions are discussed before concluding the final bid as per RFP.
 It is important method as it helps in understanding the requirement and mapping with the
resources and capability the consulting firm has, so as to decide whether firm could really
execute the project seamlessly.

9. What do we understand by Assess and Discovery approach? How is it relevant in this

case?

Assess and Discovery approach is to fully understand the client's situation by examining
the area of the organization that needs the most attention and what kinds of attention it
needs. By collaborating with client during this phase, client orientation is done to accept
feedback about the situation and also the recommendations for how it can be addressed.

In this case Client was trying to move employees from different location to a single
building where in nineteen thousand employees’ means about 15,000 desktop PCs, a
UNIX server and about fifty special graphic workstations for chemical design had to be
seamlessly shifted to new location without hampering ongoing business activity. This
required to run the business and project simultaneously. So before starting the project an
assessment of the current situation in different location and new building, processes,
dependencies and other factors are critical. Based on this assessment and discovery
consulting firm would recommend way forward to client.