Ned Wicker

CASE 4: NED WICKER

Ned Wicker is the manager of the Systems Proposal Department (SPD) in the Graubart Electronics Company. The department was organized a year earlier to improve efforts by the company to gain new electronics systems business. Its functions were:

1. To carefully review and evaluate all incoming bid specifications for new electronic systems required by aerospace and other users of such equipment;

2. To decide which of these (if any) would be potentially profitable, and within both the technical and fabrication capabilities of Graubart Electronics; and

3. To prepare the necessary business proposals to win contracts from potential customers .

A graduate electronic engineer, Ned had been a senior proposal analyst with another company when he was hired by Wanda Alinsky, the president of Graubart, to set up the new department. This job coincided with his completion of an MBA degree and it was his first managerial position. He personally recruited and hired a diverse group of seven highly qualified engineers as systeems proposal analysts, most of whom had prior experience with customer requirements in the industry. Although the additional overhead cost would be substantial, the president, Wicker's boss, knew that mounting a bold strategy to acquire new business was necessary and she was enthusiastic about the new group, especially Ned's aggressive approach in getting things organized and underway.

Since the work of generating and submitting technical proposals to potential customers can be both costly and time-consuming, Wicker knew the key to his department's success would be the careful preliminary screening and selection of bid possibilities on which proposals were to be prepared by the group. It was largely for this reason that he built an elite group of professionals to work with him, and he developed a procedure for full participation by the entire group in the RFP (Request for Proposal) selection process .

The procedure called for all RFPs to be distributed and given preliminary evaluation by individual analysts, who then made informal written "bid/no bid" recommendations to Wicker on Friday each week. Each Monday morning a review meeting involving the entire group was held, at which time each analyst presented the highlights of those proposals he/she had reviewed the preceding week and then led the group in discussing them. After all RFPs had been reviewed in this way, which frequently involved vigorous debate within the group, final selections for making proposals were reached by group consensus.

The RFP review and selection procedure seemed to work effectively for the first three or four months, and three proposals submitted by the department resulted in major new contracts for the company. Discussions in the Monday morning review meetings about various RFPs were lively and involved the whole group. Frequently the sessions ran over into the early afternoon. The variety of individual backgrounds Ned had consciously selected provided the group with a broad technical perspective for approaching its task. On only two occasions, based on information he had gained from top management staff meetings, did Ned find it necessary to overrule the group's decision. This was not done high-handedly, however, and although a few of the analysts expressed some mild resentment, Ned was able to lead the members to see the wisdom in his final decision.

At the Monday meeting following the announcement of the second contract won by the SPD group, the president paid a surprise visit just before lunch with a bottle of champagne for Ned and the group to show her appreciation of their efforts to date. Wicker made no secret of his pride in their having received this recognition.

While