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NEGOTIATING HIGH VALUE BUSINESS

OF CAPITAL EQUIPMENTS

BEAM PUMPS LTD

Beam Pumps had been in the pumps business for more than three decades .Traditionally

they had been operating through dealer network thus catering to market of standard

products. They were rarely considered for specialized requirement of new projects wherepumps were customized. The company had undergone significant qualitative change in

the recent years .They had formed joint venture with a leading British manufacturer

having excellent design of large water pumps. Beam had lately recruited new persons in

Marketing to help execute plan of direct sales.

Mr Anil Deshpande, Regional Manager for the Western Region was one of the new

entrants at Beam. He was an Engineer-MBA from the leading institutes in Western India.

After having worked with a process pump manufacturer in Marketing for 8 years he waswith Beam for 3 years. Two Senior Executives working with him were with the company

for more than 12 years. Mr Ranganathan was one of them. Mr Ranganathan was veryenthusiastic and charged when he returned from the tour that day. He narrated the story

to his boss Anil as below:

Ranga: As you know, Mohta Chemicals have been regularly buying our small Water

Pumps and specific Chemical Pumps. As usual I met Murthy-Purchase

Manager, Khanna-Production Manager, Keskar-Maintenance Manager and gave

them offers of some new requirement of pumps. Murthy also finalized an orderfor 4Nos pumps

Anil: Did you not meet your old pal Mahadevan?

Ranga: This is exactly what I am eager to tell you. Mahadevan has recently been

promoted as GM(Proj) When I met him as a courtesy he revealed tremendousprospects of business in the near future. Project work on their new Fertilizer

Project has already started. The enquiries for various quipments have recently

been issued. They require 8 Nos of pumps of very large capacity. These pumps

shall handle the cooling water of the entire plant .Therefore the application isvery critical. They were not aware of our capability to manufacture

such pumps with available design from our collaborator .I could convince him

and received the inquiry.

Anil: Great job done! We have to carefully plan if we have to get this high value

contract. It will amount to nearly 10%of total sale of Beam.The decision makers at the client are located at their plant which is at a remote

place. Even our HO is far. Thus coordination and communication is critical.

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Anil immediately talked to his boss Mr Narayanan VP Marketing who assured all

support. The enquiry was also referred to the collaborators for concurance on proper

selection and support. The offer was sent.

Anil and Ranga together visited Mohta Chemicals 4 times in the next 2 months. They met

Mr Mohan Mathur VP who was going to head the project as President. Ranga madeanother 2 visits alone. During his visit Ranga probed the Project Engineer Kesavan about

their system to correctly understand the application. Anil could then discuss in detail with

the project team about ideal selection of a pump and superiority of Beam Pumps. Duringthe discussion Anil and Ranga could get the feel of what the client needed and what the

competition was like. Surprisingly MP Pumping Systems who were expected to be

technically strong were operating on a low key. Dynamic Pumps were active.

Subsequently Narayanan came to Mumbai specifically to meet Mahadevan and Mohan

Mathur. The M D of Mohta Chemicals, Mr Ram Mohta was located in Mumbai. Anil

arranged his meeting with the MD of Beam when the technical evaluation was over.

Main concern of Anil before final negotiation was Dynamic Pumps who could prop upwith last minute surprise.

P G SATIIAYE 1MAR 1997