Proposal prices

We have a MS team in Pune too.. Recently they put up a telecom proposal for an African client wherein the total cost including s/w and h/w comes to a cool 6 million USD .. In addition to that MS is also there.. they will ask for consulting charges on top of that.. So you can safely assume that the project cost will be in the range of 15 million USD.. now they want a bakra from our team to go out there and present it.. According to them, they don’t have the bandwith for that. Buggers!!. Anyways one of my colleagues has been chosen as the bakra.. So I was just telling this to him over lunch..

You finish the ppt and then this is what happens…

Client:: “15 million, you say, eh?”

Ravi:: “yeah, that’s how much it adds up to.. This is a big thing.. best solution, latest technology, full SOA implementation and we will give an extended warranty period of 1 year”

Client :: “ yeah but..”

Ravi:: “ We can reduce on some offshore level 3 support prices. But that’s a later discussion”

Client:: “yeah but..”

Ravi:: “ OK.. Will give some discount on the volumes we generate for your new engagements too”

Client:: “yeah but..”

Ravi:: “ No buts..We are a level 5 company and we have MS overseeing us.. So you wouldn’t… “

Client:: “hold on damn it!!.. Let me finish!! Do you know what is my country’s GDP ?”

Ravi (very meekly…):: “nope”

Client:: “yeah, that’s what.. Our GDP numbers are lesser than your proposal cost. So you better run the country for sometime.. Fill in the country’s coffers and then come back.. Hell, we will even make you our President for sometime !!”

Didn't come out so well in the written format. It was much better when I had told it to him L

Bye!!

chekhov's short novels

Took it off from one of my friend's bookshelves about a month back and have been religiously plodding through it for sometime now. I haven't read much of the Russians so thought this will be a welcome break from my regular Indian author reading material.. The setting of the stories are a bit archaic at times, but somehow the description of the land, the environment and settings are extraordinarily vivid in this translated text.. Morning bus journeys, flat steppes showing the vastness of the landscape, Russian peasant life with all it's tidings form a majority of the stories. Couple of them relate to the city gentry with it's usual pretentiousness and obsequious behavior to the higher social classes. In short life in general.. An interesting read :)