Page 188 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Writing the Methods Slot 179

considerable risk of alienating Collins, who not only developed the forecast but
also has confidence in its accuracy. You decide to use two key arguments:

◉ An accurate forecast is critical for determining the magnitude and timing of
additional manufacturing resources (that is, it drives the entire analysis).
◉ An independent confirmation of the forecast will assure Consolidated that ABC’s
projected growth and timing are real and merit significant capital investment.

Your closing P-slot for this task, where you have the opportunity to explain
the results of completing it, will argue that an accurate, authenticated fore-
cast will provide the basis for making a sound first estimate of future resource
requirements.
Below is your draft of Task 1. The bullets in the middle of this and subsequent
tasks are the I-slot material taken from your logic tree.

Task 1: Confirm ABC’s Long-Term Product Forecast
Although ABC already has a forecast by product line, we believe that the
engagement must be conducted with Consolidated constantly in mind. Since
Consolidated must release the necessary capital funding, it must be convinced
of the engagement’s rigor and robustness. For that reason, we believe that
the forecast must be confirmed by an independent third party. Therefore, we
propose to work with ABC’s marketing management to confirm or modify the
long-term forecast by:
◉ validating ABC’s current overall market forecast
◉ validating ABC’s market share and your geographic and product-mix
projections

The consensus market forecast developed in this task will represent the best
thinking of your marketing group and the Paramount team. The forecast,
used with various manufacturing data, will enable the engagement team to
develop future resource requirements over time.

Composing the P-Slots for Task 2: Determine Total Factory
Resource Requirements at Alternative Forecast Levels

Your initial meeting with ABC’s buying team and Gilmore’s description of the
current operation have given you a high regard for ABC’s capabilities. But you
also realize that even competent managers can be so close to their operations
that they risk taking them for granted, not fully recognizing opportunities for
improvement. You also know that ABC hasn’t been involved in planning a new