The Business Negotation

I was in London to negotiate (with my company) to get the best price for my customer. (The likelihood of two different customers paying the same price for the same thing is essentially nil.) I had also resolved to process the enormous backlog of internally-generated requests for information. A representative sample:

* Provide the number of your customer’s employees in Latvia.
* How many computers will your customer purchase in each of the following (193)
countries?Note: Use a separate form for each country. Make sure to indicate the month of
each purchase as well as the computer model, fulfilment methodology, the registered name of the affiliate
that will make the purchase (if multiple affiliates exist, complete the form for each one separately)….
* How much money did your customer spend in 2008 with each of the following:
IBM, Sun, EMC, HDS, HCL, Tata, Accenture, Lenovo, Dell, Siemens, Getronics…

I knew where Latvia was located, and could name the 12 months of the year, but..

“Shall I make up numbers?” I thought. “Or should I redirect the query to some other part of the organization?” I composed a response.

To: Clerical Administration
From: Dan Martin
Subject: Latvia

I believe that the Latvian Marketing department, a functional unit of our GWE Regional Management Organization, is best placed to provide accurate information about employment statistics in Balkans. Alternatively, you can access the EU reference documentation and statistically model banking employment.

I appreciate these requests for information. As the request rate accelerates, I will have no time available to actually visit my customer.

Please provide the following information to me:

• Who requested this information?
• What are they going to do with it? (If you’re not sure, I have a suggestion.)

Warm regards,

Dan

I knew, by the way, that Latvia was Baltic, not the Balkan. I wondered, however, if the corporate administrators knew.