Motocross Free Essays

Did you know Motocross is thought to be the most popular kind of motorcycle racing? It was established in Europe during the 1930’s and over a period of time it became popular all across the world. The game is made up of forty riders that compete on the same track at one time. A pro race will last around thirty minutes and a amateur race will last about 5 minutes. We will write a custom essay sample on Motocross or any similar topic only for you Order Now My name is travis staubs and I have raced motocross for eight years of my life. Today I’m going to talk to you about the importance of gearing up for safety, how to operate the bike, some tips for you to enjoy racing. First you will need the proper gear and that includes: boots, knee pads or braces, chest protector, a helmet, goggles, gloves, and the racing jersey and racing pants. That gear will help protect anyone from seriously becoming injured. Hitting the ground isn’t fun when you do not have any protection on. Second, you need to make sure your bike is ready to ride. Your bike needs to be filled with fuel, have right amount of oil, your spokes need to be tighten, and the brakes work, really just the basic maintenance. Before starting the bike, you need to make sure the gas is on and the choke is on since you havent started the bike in a while. and then pull the kick starter out and kick down on the kick starter a few times and the bike should start. Once the bike has started, put the choke back in and let the engine warm up. It shouldn’t take that long for the bike to get warm. Once its warm, hope on the bike and make sure you have all your gear on. Pull the cluth in and click down on the gear shitfer. The cluth is on the handle bars infront of your left hand. But do not pull the throttle all the way back and take off , you will wreak. You want to ease out the clutch and have little gas to take off. To shift gears and to go faster you need mid rpms and once you do you want to pull the clutch in and shift the gear shitfer up to change gears and when you click down, you go into low gears for low speeds. Here are some tips for you:Try to ride all the time. The more you ride the faster and better you getDo not focus on trying to be perfect. No one is perfect just work on little pieces at a time. Such as elbows up, look forward, come into the turns, good line slections, and when you hear someone coming up behind you, do not go across the track, stay where you are because their going to go around you. Bike set up. Bars in a comfy position not to high or too low and like I said earlier about the maintenance. Its all about having a good time so just have a good time and don’t push yourself too hard. How to cite Motocross, Papers Motocross Free Essays Good morning class. The theme of my IA is motocross but today I will speak specifically on the topic â€Å"The development of motocross as an established sport†. What is motocross?†¦. We will write a custom essay sample on Motocross or any similar topic only for you Order Now Motocross is defined as a timed motorcycle race over a closed outdoor course consisting of a winding dirt trail with hills, jumps, sharp turns, and often muddy terrain. This sport originated in Britain as an off-road event called scrambling. The first known scramble took place at Camberley, Surrey in 1924. The earliest motorcycles were little more than bicycles with small internal combustion engines attached. During these early years people sometimes, used the tracks built for bicycle racing for scrambling events. These early scrambling events were used to show case motorcycles entered by manufacturers to publicize their brand in much the same way they do today. By the late 1920’s â€Å"Scrambling† had become very popular in both Britain and France. The French added new dimensions to the sport, they shortened the tracks added laps and man made obstacles such as jumps. They also changed the name to what it is known as today†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Motocross which is a combination of motorcycle and cross country. The bikes used for motocross during the late 1920’s were very similar to those used on the streets at that time such as Harley Davidson’s and Indians, which had rigid frames. By the 1930’s these then gave way to frames containing suspension and more advanced swinging fork rear suspension by the early 1950’s. According to the FIM motocross went international in 1947 when the Dutch national motorcycle federation hosted a competition called the motocross des nations for national teams on an estate in the Netherlands. Three countries were entered in the first year of the competition they were Great Britain, The Netherlands, and Belgium. The riders competed in races consisting of two heats each of eight laps, over a two mile circuit. Scoring was done by computing the total times of the top three riders from each national team. The British who were represented by, Bill Nicholson, Fred Rist, and Ray Scovell riding 500cc bikes manufactured by the British Small arms company won the competition, beating the Belgians by only 9 seconds. The popularity of the event was shown to have greatly improved as the second staging of the event in Belgium attracted thirty thousand spectators. The British continued to show their dominance in the sport as they went on to win the motocross des nations 15 times in the first twenty years of the event. In 1952 the FIM (Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme), the motorcycling’s international governing body, created an individual European Championship, and then upgraded it to a World Championship title in 1957. In 1962 a young engineer in East Germany Walter Kaaden, made a technological breakthrough that greatly improved the two-stroke engine and its usefulness which in turn â€Å"revolutionized† the motorcycle industry. His discovery was that of the principle of the expansion chamber, which when properly shaped, instantly increased the power of a two stroke engine by over 25 percent. This gave the 2 stroke engine a power to weight ratio that easily exceeded the 4-stroke engine. Another benefit of the 2 stroke engine was that it was less complicated and much cheaper to mass produce. As a result of this many industrial nations including Germany, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain, and Japan quickly embraced the new technology. As engine design and power improved competition for 250cc motorcycles the class in which 2 strokes performed their best, began to gain in popularity and in 1962 the FIM created a 250cc world championship. As a result of the introduction of the 250cc class the growth of motocross during the 1970s was nothing less than a motorsport revolution. The growth of motocross when measured by the number of American motorcycle association sanctioned events grew one hundred fold between 1965 and 1975. In the 1980’s the sport developed even more in the US, the 250cc class went through the decade and in 1985 the East/West 125cc class which was created for the younger less experienced riders was formed. During the 1990’s the 250 class remained in the spotlight, with the main focus now moving from Europe where motocross had been more popular, to the USA, where riders such as Jeremy McGrath and Jeff Stanton consistently dominated the sport. Today, as a result of the advancements and achievements in the world of motocross it has allowed for the world to recognize it as an established sport in which many have excelled and shown greatness †¦. persons such as Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael, and James Stewart are some of the greatest names associated with the sport of motocross. How to cite Motocross, Essay examples

Carnival Cruise Lines Case free essay sample

Situation Carnival has a strong market expansion strategy for selling the mass-market cruise category and first-time cruisers. They have a clear vision and knowledge about the industry and a commitment to their brand essence, which is fun. Problem Statement One area that Carnival needs to improve upon in order to stay competitive within the industry is information technology. Carnival has a large IS group, but the focus has been on maintenance and operations of the existing infrastructure. In order to gain new customers they need to know who to market. By analyzing customer data they could find out who to focus their marketing efforts on. Analysis Management at Carnival had been discussing what strategy to use in order to personalize their marketing to the customer and how to make them loyal customers. One option was to use CRM software. By utilizing the customer information within their database, they can create a strong CRM program that will differentiate Carnival from competitor cruise lines and ultimately other land vacation destinations. We will write a custom essay sample on Carnival Cruise Lines Case or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Also, CRM would help with cross selling. CRM had been a fad that had recently swept the industry, but due to Carnivals conservative stance toward IT they did not follow suit. Recommendations and Next Steps Once they are ready to implement the CRM system: 1. Make collecting the customer information as easy as possible. Either by adding fields on line that the customer must fill out in order to book the cruise or by simply downloading the data from their sail and sign card. 2. Have a central location for all the data to be stored. The information needs to be easily accessible by the data analysts; The information also needs to be presented in an easy to understand format. 4. Data mining tools need to be used in order to organize the data so patterns can be identified. From there customers can be profiled and a sales and marketing strategy can be made. 5. Ultimately use the information to enhance the customers experience. By knowing what customers want and providing that to them you will be able to gain loyal customers. The customer data could also be used to personalize the customer’s experience. They could offer preferred customer discounts to some excursions for repeat customers only. Anything they can do to make the customer feel special and appreciated would enhance their cruise experience. If they can achieve that then the customer is more likely to refer others to Carnival and cruise with them again which will in turn increase their bottom line. Furthermore, repeat customers tend to spend more money than first-time cruisers, from spending extra on nicer rooms to adding more excursions. CRM will allow Carnival to increase that all important repeat customer number.

The Perfect Plan Essays - Brian Welch, Converts To Christianity

The Perfect Plan The Perfect Plan When you only know a few and want to know more you learn to be who you are not. You live 100 different lives. Some people know you as this and some as that, and the only one who knows the truth is you. But it truly is amazing how acquaintances that are at different levels at the social hierarchy can move you up. As I entered my senior year of high school, I did not kick it with many people. Strictly a, not by choice, select few. Always, there are the cool popular people who everyone wants to be like. I decided to make it my goal to be part of each of their lives and I would have a million people to kick it with. Everyone is friends at the school, but inside this main friendship, there are sub categories as far as friendships grow. It breaks all the way down to a person's best friend. There could be 50 guys that always hang out together but only 2 that would ever sleep over each other's house just for fun. This, just being an example. As I went through my classes I had to spot out the king pins of the trendiest groups in the grade. People I could actually grow on and use them to network to different people. But you need a reason to talk to them. Of course homework is the easiest but after a while it gets boring. I needed conflict, a situation, something to happen. An early weekend into the school year, one of my, I would say 10 real friends, and I basically *censored*ed the same girl at the same time who we had met only 3 hours prior. So we got lucky, wow. But on Monday it had began. Ever watch TV and see stupid high school shows that spread rumors within like an hour and the e whole school knows. Well everyone was asking me what happened. This is the attention I needed to begin my climb. To the guys a god, and to the girls someone with experience. By telling people and also not telling and keeping them guessing makes you a ?top talk? on their list. Now a girl in the elite category of school, I was lucky to have 3 classes with. Her and I began to talk a lot. Me just being seen with her was enough to make me look ?cool? to the cool people. She did not realize it because of my humbleness but it was helping my reject ass climb. Now the other cool people accepted me. Slowly invited to parties and also given a lot more attention my reputation was being constructed. To maintain your cool image only a few cool things must be done once in a while to remind the dumb-asses that you are still cool. A web site for a senior prank. Even better, I got the attention of the whole senior class. All eyes on me. Now being called, never having to call myself, I am asked to be places, kick it with people, asked if I needed anything, treated like a god. My job is now done. It was all triggered by one *censored* one weekend early in the year. All eyes on me. Now, I don't run these people, but I am now part of their lives and am very close with a lot of them. Not but 7 months ago did I ignore and they ignore me in the halls even though we knew each other. I call m yself the human icebreaker. The trick is to let them know you first, and then they will bring themselves closer. But you have to control letting them know you. The girl in the elite class thinks I *censored* every weekend because of my one escapade. Some guys really know I don't get girls, or al least as many as some people think. Some people think I am a pothead, some think I would never touch a pipe if my life depended on it. And the funny thing is, I control how they perceive me. YOUR OPINION OF ME IS WHAT I ALLOW IT TO

8 Classic Storm Poems

8 Classic Storm Poems Poets love stormy weather. The powers of the natural world revealed in a tempest can be shocking, terrifying and destructive, but they are also awe-inspiring, exhilarating, and metaphorically rich- a perfect source of poetic inspiration. Here we’ve selected a few classic poems describing or inspired by storms. Attune yourself to the natural havoc outdoors by reading them while you’re safely sheltering inside from a storm, perhaps, or declaim them to the sky outside after the storm has passed. William Shakespeare, Storm speech on the heath from King Lear (1623)William Cullen Bryant, â€Å"The Hurricane† (1854)Walt Whitman, â€Å"Proud Music of the Storm† (from Leaves of Grass, 1900 edition)Algernon Charles Swinburne, â€Å"A Channel Passage† (1904)Amy Lowell, â€Å"Storm-Racked† (1914)Robert Frost, â€Å"A Line-Storm Song† (1915)Siegfried Sassoon, â€Å"Storm and Sunlight† (1918)Jean Toomer, â€Å"Storm Ending† (1922)

Philosophy of Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Philosophy of Education - Essay Example In order to compensate for the deficiencies pointed above, a lot of hard work from earnest educators is necessary. It is perhaps a reflection of my deep compassion for children that I have decided to be an educator. Moreover, I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching young kids, especially of elementary school level. With modern education technology much advanced than what it was a few decades ago, it would be an exciting time to be a teacher. For example, today there are overhead projectors, personal computer terminals, on-line library databases with extensive catalogs, sophisticated research methodologies, etc that are available to the instructor. Using all these, I intend to create for my students a wonderful learning experience in the classroom and beyond. At another level, I would like to contribute toward positive changes to our education system. At present, as research conducted on SAT score data reveal, there is a definite race-bias in many of these standardized tests. There is also the problem faced by Hispanic-American kids, whose mother tongue is Spanish. The way in which some schools get funded easily while others struggle to garner government support is also problematic. This is illustrated by the obvious failure areas of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in the last few years. Despite so much social progress over the centuries, socio-economic background and race/ethnicity are significant determinants of academic success. And I am interested in working on viable solutions for these problems.

Nutrition Trends Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Nutrition Trends - Essay Example Taking advantage of this trend companies are coming up with products enriched with amino acids GABA, L-theanine and tryptophan (Helm, 2009). 3. Catnap food: To meet the everyday challenges it is essential to procure healthier sleep at night. For this as many as 30 food products including beverages have been launched that claim to induce sleep, encompassing chocolate and hot cocoa drinks (Helm, 2009). 4. Planetary health: Apart from personal health trend also paves the way for "eco friendly"; "go green" products are being promoted including the kind of packing that has been adopted to have a safe environment (Helm, 2009). 5. Defensive foods & inflammation fighters: Trend implies the inclination for food products that keeps the doctor away and enhance immunity through vitamin C and antioxidants, thereby, promoting foods minimizing the probabilities of chronic illness akin to heart and obesity related issues or diabetes (Helm, 2009). In order to evade the risk of chronic diseases, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans[Dietary Guidelines] affords scientific recommendations to endorse health and to trim down menaces. Repercussions of underprivileged dietary practices and physical sluggishness encompass cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and some cancers. The following guidelines suggested are: 1. Adequate nutrients within calorie needs with least saturated and trans fats, salt, sugar, high cholesterol and alcohol. Depending upon the age and pregnancy conditions the food must be adequately supplemented with vitamins B, C, D, minerals, iron and calcium. 3. Recommended Food Group: Ample of fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, low fat milk and milk products must be consumed. It is directly correlated with the age. The diet must be low in fat and should be rich in mono- or polyunsaturated fatty acids, the same also holds true for poultry products. The food must comprise ample of carbohydrate and fibres. Sodium

Looking At Presales Bid Management Information Technology Essay

Looking At Presales Bid Management Information Technology Essay This topic s not a primary focus of this book but this is included here for greater awareness. The chapter has a major real-time case study at the end. This chapter takes you through the preliminary concepts and then introduces the third party consultants and their role in large deals. Role of onsite relationship managers is also discussed here. What Is Presales Bid Management? Presales involves lead generation follow-ups, solution preparation, final proposals, product demonstrations, proof of concepts (POC), and many other marketing related activities till the customer is acquired. Bid Management is a vital Presales support service that provides copywriting, administrative and technical resources to ensure the quality of proposal documentation and presentations. A bid managers role is to present a proposal to client that meets their business and cost objectives, while minimizing business risks and maximizing profit margins (to her parent organization). Bid manager is the owner of proposal making process. She studies the request for proposal (RFP docs) from the client, which can be very comprehensive and legal in nature. She plans the whole proposal making like any other project and is solely responsible for keeping quality, costs and schedule for the whole bidding process. She needs to work very closely with sales, technical, delivery and commercial teams to co-ordinate the preparation of a winning proposal. The sales, delivery and technical teams can belong to different verticals and might be scattered across the globe, so the effective coordination and inter personal skills are the key here. A bid manager may not have any direct control over any of the teams, she is working with. For participating executives from different verticals, proposal making may be an extra add to their already tight day-to-day schedules, so getting quality time from them can be one of the biggest challenge in the process. The term winning proposal is very important here; because if we dont win, the whole exercise will be just a big overhead to the organization and how many such overheads your organization can absorb without significantly affecting the bottom line? Following are the main functions that can be categorized under presales and bid management. Qualification and prioritization of proposal and tenders. Co-ordination with sales, solutions, delivery and finance departments To ensure the availability of complete and quality information from each source within set timelines. Proposal documentation. Final presentations to the client with sales team that may involve technical consulting and product demonstrations. Who Fits? A good fit here would be a person who knows the company and its offerings inside out. Good communication, co-ordination, presentation, and interpersonal skills are usually required. It will help if the person for the bid manager post has work in similar projects/ products (as required by RFP) and can appreciate their commercial as well as technology aspects. She will be required to do a lot of number crunchings say for schedule, cost and scope and quick what-if computations to deal with variations in these factors. A thorough understanding of industry segment in which she is working will be a big plus. Not to forget stress and round the clock working under extreme pressures of dead lines is an integral part of this job. The Organization For Presales And Bid Management This will vary from company to company. In IT services companies there may be a few people marked working for presales function at each vertical/ department level. Typically it is headed by a manager presales. For large deals there can be a presales group working at corporate level that helps presales managers at different verticals. The corporate level presales group might involve very senior and seasoned professionals as far as the whole process of bid management is concerned. Whenever the organization receives a RFP (Request for Proposal), pre sales group may need to draw people from different verticals as per the expertise required in making proposal. Technical writers, commercial and legal managers are invariably required in case of large deals. There can be a bid manager designated for every individual RFP depending upon the size of the deal. In case of smaller deals, a single bid manager might takeover multiple bids. A bid manager is like a project manager with a responsibility of complete bid process. The bid manager typically belongs to the presales organization but there can be variations; if the stakes in proposal from a particular vertical are more, they may like to appoint the bid manager in consultation with pre sales. Once the bidding process is complete, expert from other verticals may go back to their regular assignments. Role Of Third Party Consultants In Execution Of Bids Companies typically specialize in their line of business; floating a tender and managing the whole process may altogether be a different ballgame. Its true especially when the stakes on the buyer side are high and tenders floated globally. The buyers side may find it an uphill task to manage the whole bidding process and fortunately consultants are there to help. In the whole process of bid management, consultants can be employed by both buyers as well as sellers. On buyers side they help in writing documents for RFP (Request for Proposal) and manage the whole bid process till the right vendor is selected. RFP document is important as it tells exactly what goods and services are required along with location, price, constraints and other terms and conditions. Its a legal document and forms the base for writing proposal on the suppliers side. Similarly on buyers side, third part consults help in evaluating the proposal. Typically they can take the role of a bid manager on the suppliers side and do coordination with verticals as required, and manage the whole bidding process. When third party consultants are engaged by the buying organization, they are the sole contact points for vendors for the whole bid-life-cycle. For buyers, they ensure quality of RFP and supporting documents, the right placement of the RFP (putting to select qualified vendors), the assessment of vendor capabilities and fit, the the documentation is as per agreed standards and finally help the buyers to rate the vendor proposals to conclude the bidding process. They may also monitor the transition and change management for buyer and typically oversee steady stare operations for an agreed period. Role Of Onsite/ Customer Relationship Managers (RM) Its often onsite relationship managers, who are first to know yes! Some thing right is going on there. They may bring in the lead; much before the official tender is floated. They help to ensure, their company is also a party to the bidding process. In many strategic deals the tender may not be floated publicly but the buyers place it to select companies, who they believe, have the capabilities to deliver as per their requirements. Onsite coordinators can bring in vital information about buyer groups, managers and their motivation behind floating such a tender. Some time approximate budget is also known. All this information can be vital in upbringing of a winning proposal, in fine-tuning the commercials and other details in last minutes if required. Post win onsite managers play a lead role in transition and ensure required levels of co-operation from clients end. Its the familiarity of onsite coordinators with client managers and their business (and also on what will fly) that ma kes them a crucial link in the whole process. Section B: Sales marketing of IT Companies Definitions Many of us do not appreciate the fact that sales are an important sub-part of marketing. Marketing is everything you do to promote your business. If you have an apt marketing strategy, most of the job is done. If the customer values your product services, she will herself make an effort to buy them. And you need little or no sales effort at all. The primary job of marketing is to create interest of the customer in your companys products and services. Marketing strategies deal with business development, selling techniques, communication and customer relationships. Marketing creates value for your customers as well as the company. With this, I think we understand the difference between sales marketing. Now; when we talk of IT we are generally concerned with marketing selling our solutions. For the purpose of this discussion; a solution is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognized problem that should provide some measurable improvement. So whats different here? We have two processes in any business scenario purchase and sale. The solution sales processes depends more on the buyer, who must feel the need for value from the organization, beyond its standard product or services being sold. The buyer must also perceive the prospective seller as having the credibility to deliver that expertise. At the same time the buyer must feel trust in supplier to discuss a problem share information that may be crucial for his survival. After that only a supplier may be allowed to do due-diligence and offer a solution and associated commercials (to the buyer). So we can make out the difference between a buyer in two situations solutions selling and selling standard products services. Fair enough! Critical Success Factors In Solutions Selling Already so much has been written on this topic in the management literature. We will discuss only a few of key points for the sake of completeness. Believing the emotional value and benefits of solution offerings: It is important to get an emotional understanding of your service offerings along with technical and business aspects. You need integrity and a strong belief in your offerings. For making a sale you should be able to transfer all this into the hands of buyer. Ability to find qualified buyers: Meaningful selling happens when you can find people who have a certain need and you can fill that need. Establish trust: Selling always requires building relationships and determining the buyers true needs. If trust cant be established; selling a solution might be extremely difficult. Match needs/wants to product benefits: It is critical to understand the buyers true needs and be able to match them with the solutions benefits. Ability to ask for the sale and deliver: Simply presenting the benefits of solution isnt enough. You must be able to ask the prospect to take an action in the form of placing an order. Once the order is placed you must be able to deliver on what you proposed. This is directly linked with your credibility to make next sale to the same customer or in the greater market place. How Technical Background Helps? It is very difficult to find people who are well-versed in selling solutions. Companies are investing a lot many $ in training qualified people with relevant technical backgrounds so that they are able to find the right solution for the customers. An effective solutions sales executive should be capable of processing a potential clients business needs, comprehend the technologies available and help designing a solution that delivers desired value to the customer and maximize the profits for her company. Most successful solution sales profiles have good engineering and business backgrounds. They have the right soft-skills, and thorough understanding of market. The key soft-skills that count here are business communication, public speaking, conflict management, and negotiation. Challenges Faced By A Customer Relationship Manager (RM) One of the most important skills RM needs is the ability to multitask and utilize various skill sets depending on the assignment at hand. Each day can bring its own set of unique responsibilities and challenges. For example it is anchoring a series of client meetings to discuss a large proposal for outsourcing their infrastructure ERP maintenance. It can well be a networking event to congregate the important stake holders, both from business and IT for a big project. Managing several different tasks at the same time might be challenging. The variety of responsibilities a RM has, to keep the business and relationship running can be very interesting at times. Back in office, there can be reviews of ongoing projects in onsite- offshore model with a couple of meetings per week. There can be one-on-one meetings with the client and other stake holders. Other meetings can be with the offshore teams late in the evening. Effective presentation and negotiation skills are very important for a RM. It can be periodic presentations to clients CIO on overall engagement or it can be presentation regarding resolution to a major break down in IT services. At times RM is there only to listen and make a compromise or mediate difference of opinion on project scope between project owner and the offshore project manager. One major task for RM is Bids and new initiatives as we have discussed in earlier sections. RM is one of the very few persons present on client side (from vendor) so she is the one who takes the first reaction from the client for both good and bad of offshore teams. She needs to be a true diplomat if you want to say it short! RM vs. BRM We are very much familiar with the role of customer relationship managers (RM) in solutions selling. The role of Business Relationship Manager (BRM) is a relatively new role in IT organizations. The BRM is an important link between IT and the business. The BRM needs to have significant knowledge pertaining to both technology and the commercials. BRM generally talks for the business within an IT organization, without any additional responsibilities to sell products or work on upcoming business deals. BRM role was actually created by CIOs in IT as a solution to what business sees IT as a barrier. Many times business doesnt understand how swiftly IT organization can respond to their fast changing needs or simply doesnt appreciate the capabilities of IT? BRM is supposed to fill this communication gap. BRM needs to know both business and technology to a reasonable level. This position also requires an ability to understand the business adequately to communicate the substance of projects t o the technology teams. On the other hand, BRM also needs to comprehend the technology sufficiently to communicate its complexity in simple terms for the business. Case Study: A Complete Bidding Cycle for a Multimillion $ IT Outsourcing Deal Y Inc. is a US based IT outsourcing company dealing in Information Technology products and services. It has marketing and development offices in more than 50 countries all over the world with sales revenue running in multi billion dollars from services alone. The services IT portfolio covers almost every segment ranging from high end ERP consulting, internet, mainframes to legacy applications. Y Inc. has development centers in all Indian metros with total staff exceeding 40,000 in India alone. ERP services and Web Applications are the most revenue earning activities throughout the globe. Y Inc. had received a request for proposal (RFP) from a European conglomerate (AtoV inc.) for managing their IT operations worldwide. They wanted to outsource their entire IT operations in order to achieve better operational efficiencies, substantially , reduce IT operations costs and get an ability to focus more on their core manufacturing and retail business. AtoV Inc. has diverse interests throughout the world that include heavy engineering, consumer goods, house hold electronic equipment, electric distribution grids, automobiles and retail businesses. They also have a fully owned IT company (IT Ltd.) that is supposed to manage IT operations for all their group companies. The group IT Company (IT Ltd.) is seriously short of skilled manpower to support other group companies in a cost effective manner. Also there is a lot of interference in the operations of IT Ltd. itself by the corporate (AtoV Inc.) and its not free to price its services as per market standards. Many a times IT Lt d. is forced to give resources free of cost or at nominal rates to other companies in the conglomerate to manage their IT operations. Appointments at top level in IT Inc. are also dictated by the corporate (AtoV Inc.); and there are many more such reasons, this group IT arm (IT Ltd.) is fast becoming economically not-so-viable for providing IT services to the group. The corporate was forced to look outside for better options (vendors) that are market driven and can be held responsible incase of non performance. This was the first occasion in past several decades where AtoV Inc. had floated a RFP outside to its group empire for outsourcing IT operations. They were extra cautious and are taking every possible effort to make it a success. The RFP was not advertized publicly but only a few major players across the globe were invited to put forward their proposals. AtoV Inc. thought these were the IT services companies who could sale up to their standards in terms of quantity, quality and reliability. Total nine global IT service providers were invited to participate in this prestigious worldwide bidding exercise. Each one of the participants had annual sales revenues well exceeding $ one billion. All were global players. They all had expertise build up over the years in the areas desired by AtoV Inc. These nine service providers were selected based upon a comprehensive research project undertaken as a part of preparing formal RFP documents. The selection of final vendor would depend upon how well these service providers understand the requirements of AtoV and present a customized solution. Pricing and other commercials of the proposal were to play an important role. However the contract could be awarded to a vendor who se quality and solution perfectly suited the needs of AtoV. In that case the pricing could be second or even third best (amongst all the bids submitted). We see therefore, the pricing was not the sole criteria. The total pricing of goods and services asked by AtoV Inc. was likely to run into several hundred million $, spread over the contract period. Depending on the annual performance reviews, the contract was likely to be extended up to 5 years. As expected, this bidding exercise attracted the attention of business press, the worldwide. In India it was in headlines in national business news papers, as much of the contract was likely to be executed from India (that is perceived a low cost region). Almost all the contestants for this contract had major back office presence in India. Executives of AtoV had no prior experience in dealing with the bidding processes of this magnitude and geographical spread. So they engaged a third party consultant (TP Con.), specializing in bid management for large deals, to manage the selection of most suitable vendor for them. TP Cons were given complete responsibility from concept to closure. The selection of a suitable vendor was the closing point of the bidding process. TP Cons were also supposed to monitor the transition and work out a plan for change management. Both AtoV Inc. and TP Cons were headquartered in California. TP Cons started talks to various department heads and CXOs of companies within AtoV group that were likely to be parties in this off shoring exercise. It required almost a months due diligence for TP Cons to figure out the IT needs of various participant companies. It was decided to contract out IT operations in phases. For the first phase Infrastructure Services (IMS) and ERP were chosen. These services ba dly needed an overhaul and they were the ones, consuming the maximum portion of IT budget; almost in all the cases (Companies). After everyone agreed in concept for inviting proposals in order to contract ERP and IMS services, the first step was to write a request for proposal (RFP) document. RFP is a comprehensive document that mainly focuses on the scope of goods and services requirements and conditions governing the bidding process and the contract there after. As stated earlier this was to be a multimillion $ contract spanning over 5 years. The RFP document itself was running close to hundred pages including many annexure. The main document had many sections. The first section included company back ground (AtoV Inc.) and the intentions behind floating the RFP. Various acronyms used in the main RFP document and its annexure were defined. It had contact points for the purpose of proposal from AtoV side. It also had proposal submission timelines and terms and conditions governing the whole process of proposal making. It also had the general requirements that a vendor and its proposal needs to fulfill as a prequalification note. It had executive summary of the overall scope being outsourced. And as main content it had two sections on the detailed scope of goods and servi ces sought from prospective vendors. One section contained detailed description on ERP services and the other one detailed infrastructure service (IMS) outsourcing requirements. It had a NDA (non disclosure agreement) to be signed by prospective vendor as AtoV was sharing a lot of confidential information regarding their applications and infrastructure. All this information was vital to the prospects for an accurate proposal making. The RFP also had a template (an outline format) for proposal and broad guidelines on what proposal would contain terms of solution and commercials. Apart from the said details in the main body of RFP; there was a number of supporting annexure documents in including some detailed spread sheets. They included NDAs, formats for commercials, legal terms and conditions governing proposal, application landscape and their interface details with multiple ERPs in the scope of proposal, details of servers and diagrams of network architecture and many other details to work out the solution and commercials of the proposal as accurately as possible. After issuing RFP, the suppliers were given a chance to raise their questions regarding proposal and bid processes. The proposal was to be submitted by email before a stated due date (fixed) and time that was to be followed very strictly. After two weeks of making proposal, each one of the 9 prospects was to be given a chance of oral presentations to a selection committee comprising of senior executives from AtoV and TP Cons. The period between floating of RFP and final award of contract was approximately 2 months that is typical to deals of this magnitude. After the contract award date, there was a transition period of 3 months to transfer application and Infrastructure services to the bid winner, Y Inc. in our case. TP Cons were to chalk out and execute a plan for transition and change management. During transition all expenses were 50-50 between Y inc. and AtoV. Expenses included salaries for Y Inc. and AtoV, all overheads, software/ hardware and whatever it takes for smooth trans ition of services to Y Inc. The transition was to work under an onsite/offshore model from India as offshore base. Main onsite locations were spread in North America, UK, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Australia. After all transition is done TP Cons were to monitor the steady state operations for an additional quarter. Once Y Inc. officially received the RFP; a RFP response team was to be formed. First member, the bid manager was from presales team as it happens in many cases. He was the project manager for this mega proposal making exercise. The team members were required from infrastructure group and ERP competency. Almost all the elements of IT infrastructure like mobile devices, phones, copiers, PCs, servers, data centres, software, networks and the processes including help desk were involved and IMS was the biggest component of RFP. Three to four senior experts were needed to cover all the areas of IMS required in the proposal. As usual the resources were already busy doing other billable projects. Making a proposal was important to organization but it cant be billed to any client obviously. So taking a project manager out from his billable role for a couple of month was a difficult call for any functional head. For ERP stream we required experts from SAP, Oracle Apps and People Soft HRMS syst ems both technical and domain experts. Though the size in terms of $ value of ERP stream was smaller but we needed many more members there because of diverse nature of functionalities involved and we had 3 core ERPs to support. In ERP stream also the story was the same all designated members for proposal making were busy in billable roles. To start with, the members in both the streams were put in dual roles of working in their regular work and contributing in proposal making s well. All the team members including bid manager were busy in study and analyzing the RFP documents from the client. Legal and finance teams also studied the proposals. Around 35 questions from all the streams were sent to the client for clarifications. Sending too many questions is considered as if you have not done your home work in analyzing information supplied in RFP and at the same time sending too few (of them) may be taken as if you have not studied the RFP in the depth required for making the proposal (so its a fine balancing act). All the nine prospects sent in their list of questions to AtoV for getting more information and clarifications, which they thought were required to make a decent proposal. AtoV executives took about one week to get back with answers. QA from all the 9 prospects was combined and this combined list was circulated to each participant. This is a typical practice to make sure each prospect is benefitted by the questions raised by others and all of them have maximum possible information (right information) before they start working the proposal. AtoV along with TP Cons also hosted a pre-bid face-to-face meeting in whic h all the prospects could discuss the answers and ask on any remaining questions. This was the last chance for all the participants to raise their questions or ask for more information. After closing of this meeting till the submission of final proposals, any officials from the potential vendors (9 prospects) were not supposed to talk to ANYONE from the client (AtoV). Any such attempt could disqualify the prospect from making a proposal. With all this information now it was imperative for Y Inc. to work on proposal on a war footing. They had 40 calendar days time left and team was not in place yet. Except bid manager himself nobody else was confident on content, clauses and scope of the proposal. Y Inc. decided not to engage a third party consultant for writing a proposal. Being an IT services major, making such proposals was routinely done. More over they had a specialized team under presales for such large deals. Even with large deals team, the experts were to come from respective team of ERP and IMS competency verticals. Including bid manager and two members from the large deal group a total of 14 members were identified for making this proposal. All had prior experience in making such proposals. Two technical writers were also included in the team. One of the team members from large deals group was of the level of general manager. The day came when all designated proposal team members were detached from their regular work and they were all packed in a conference hall of the corporate office. No land lines in the conference hall (conf hall) and all mute cell phones only hot discussions! They were sometimes useful and sometimes not so useful. But great, all team members were available in a room to exchange ideas and technical writers standing, to take notes and make things presentable. First bid manager presented a schedule on how to make it who will do what by what date? A net 30 calendar day program no offs; not even weekends. Start by 7:30 or 8:00 AM till half past mid night sometimes but no compulsions. Breaks for tea and smoke; snacks made available inside the room; all make to order. The motto only one, get it done whatever it takes. You can take your offs later. Some model proposals were studied and things start taking shape. 0.1 draft versions was ready first everybody is seen disappointed. A senior member from the large deals wanted everything to be redone. The onsite manager insisted inclusion of everything as per ITIL standards as it was very important from the clients perspective. One ITIL expert and one graphics designer were also added to the team now. First draft was ready. Technical writers had to compile 485 pages for it. But finally things started taking shape. Suddenly a new policy decision came from the client side. Written proposal was OK but more emphasis was now on the oral presentations. So everything was redone on power point slides. Thanks to the timely inclusion of a graphics designer in the team. Commercials, the heart of proposal was still under making. Commercials took about a week but they occupied only two slides in the final proposal. It was close to $300 Million proposal. Real strategic for the company! Need to win it any cost. Nearly 8 to 10 what-if scenarios were worked out using different combinations in schedules, effort, resources, onsite-offshore ratio, scope and rates. Approval for all of them was taken from the corporate and the finance department in advance. These scenarios were for accommodating last minute changes prior to or during live proposal presentations. Excel work sheets were kept ready to work out any more custom scenarios if required. In the last minutes inputs from sales team become very important and y ou might need to change the commercials accordingly. The final day in a San Francisco hotel witnessed three different committees from consisting of client and TP Con officials. And the final presentations made. Written proposals were submitted a couple of days advance in emails and seven print copies in sealed envelopes. All dropped in a designated physical mail box. AtoV wanted a month to study different aspects of the proposals made. They came back in just two weeks. Now its up to you to guess who was the winner? TP Con made evaluation matrices and criteria and the whole process was transparent only to AtoV. Now it was transition of a huge number of applications and infrastructure. TP Con was the boss. They explained the process to transition team. They gave around 30 elaborate templates and forms to be filled for each stream at each step. All this was to be loaded in an orderly fashion on a web portal, designated for this transition. The progress of transition in real time was now available to everyone including top management of Y Inc. and AtoV, one more challenge, probably tougher than making the winning proposal. Main transition sites were offices and plants in Texas and New York. A couple of them added from Germany, UK and other places too. Y Inc. roped in 4 transition managers one each in California, Texas, Chennai and Noida. The transition team structure was 50-50 for offshore and onsite. More onsite presence was required to cover the learning curve and attend face to face learning sessions with AnV subject matter experts. Later the onsite offshore was to be reduced to 80 20 an d finally 90 10 in the long term. TP Cons deployed not more than 3 members from RFP till the transition was over. A total of 6 months; end to end! As it was learned later TP Cons walked away with a handsome consulting fee. Much better than one could have imagined in the starting! Want to manage bids as third party consultant Summary RFI, RFQ, RFP, Bid manager, Large Deals, raising a Team For Proposals, Proposal making, What Ifs, Commercials, legal,