Page 170 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Writing the Situation and Objectives Slots 161

In jeopardy are not only ABC’s operating objectives but your status as a pre-
mier division within Consolidated.
Recognizing these threats, your management group has suggested several
options for increasing capacity, but little agreement exists about how that capac-
ity should be deployed, and no agreement exists about the amount of capacity
required. Consensus does exist, however, in two areas: Additional capacity will
be needed, and the time when it will be needed is fast approaching.

Writing the Questions Component

The Questions Component, you now know, provides you with an opportunity to
demonstrate your qualifications as a problem solver, as someone who can dem-
onstrate the ability to ask the right questions (the better to supply the correct
answers). It also provides an opportunity to address key questions that you believe
are on the minds of the various buyers. These questions allow you to indicate to
each buyer that his or her desires or concerns have been heard without your hav-
ing to take a position one way or another. Consider the question “How much
expansion potential exists at the current facility?” In posing that question, you
would address Metzger’s desire to expand at the current facility without having to
indicate at this point whether such a strategy is desirable. Equally important, the
Questions Component “speaks” to and prepares the way for your methodology
because this component presents key questions related to deliverables expressed
as important actions in your logic tree.
You begin with a transition that continues the themes of “complex-
ity” and “urgency” and that also initiates the themes of “thoroughness” and
“comprehensiveness”:

Complicating the need to move quickly is the need to carefully develop a
thorough, convincing, and comprehensive plan accepted by both ABC’s and
Consolidated’s management. This plan should answer questions like these:

◉ Based upon the long-term forecast, how much total factory space, equip-
ment, and human resources are required and when?
◉ What opportunities exist to better utilize current equipment, space, and
new technology?
◉ What manufacturing factory configuration option or options will provide
the required space? For example, how much expansion potential exists at
the current facility, and what, if any, make/buy scenarios as well as changes
in factory roles and locations can provide additional space?