Making It Happen. Kyle Mackenzie

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СКАЧАТЬ outside, after they had been sealed.

      According to Leslie Frame in marketing, who had been in Europe working with the WaterTrends people, we expected to sell about 2,600 WindSailors in the first year, at a price of about $1,600 each. Although that meant only a ten percent sales increase at Hyler, Leslie was projecting sales of almost $10 million by the third year. That represented a significant chunk of money for the company.

      The Europeans had introduced the WindSailor in only a few geographic areas in late July, having missed their first-of-the-season target date by a wide margin (my ears pricked up when I heard that), so they did not have much marketing data to go on. The response in those selected areas, however, had been impressive. Their initial run of 2,500 boards sold out within four weeks, and they had back orders for next year equal to three-quarters of their production capacity. They were increasing their capacity to meet what they hoped would be an even greater demand next season.

      Leslie estimated that by purchasing the North American manufacturing and distribution rights to the WindSailor, Stu had given Hyler a least a full year’s head start on any North American competition, and on other European manufacturers who might try to export to our market. Since this was a brand-new product, Leslie figured that this head start would give us market dominance over any competing boards for as much as three years, more if our marketing and promotion efforts were done well.

      There was, of course, a catch that Stu seemed almost happy to relate. Leslie and the WaterTrend folks in Germany figured it would take the competition about 16 to 18 months to design, test, and produce a board that would get around the WindSailor patent protection and compete head to head with our product.

      “So you see,” said Stu, “we have to get our WindSailor into the marketplace before the end of next summer.” It was now August. “That leaves you almost ten months. No problem!” He actually reached across the desk and slapped me on the shoulder.

      No problem. Design the new facility, build it, buy all the equipment, and get it running properly in less than ten months. As I thought about this, I became even more appreciative of the fact that we were located near Portland, where it does not snow and you can do construction work all year.

      Our distribution system always pushes our production dates back earlier than you would expect. Hyler owns only one retail outlet, and it is located at our plant. The rest of our product is sold through a variety of privately owned sporting goods stores. This means our products have to be ready for sale well before the final customer wants to buy them. Distribution time is a reality that has to be factored into all of our production schedules. To get the WindSailor out to the public for, say, the last part of next summer, we would have to have it ready for sale by June. This would allow adequate time to get it out to retailers.

      The First Cost Estimate

      Stu interrupted my little reverie. “As you might expect,” he said, “The Hyler board of directors, in all their wisdom, have already decided how much this project will cost.” I hated these pronouncements. We had only a rough idea of what work was needed, and the directors were already telling us what we would be spending, regardless of anything we might discover to the contrary. Based on my experience, I expected we would discover to the contrary. Then there would be hell to pay, even though the board must have pulled the cost estimate out of thin air.

      “We have $1 million to spend, not including new equipment costs. Think you can do it for that?”

      “Stu,” I began, “how am I supposed to answer that question? I just found out about the project 20 minutes ago.”

      “Good,” said Stu, ignoring my protest, “I’ll tell Ralph that you can. I wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”

      “Hold on a minute,” I said, getting my courage up. “One million may be the board’s figure, but I refuse to be caught out on this project like every other one. As soon as I know differently, Ralph is going to have to approve a new budget.”

      Stu looked at me as if there was a whole world of pain out there that I didn’t understand. “Sure, sure,” he said. “Whatever it takes. Just make sure you pass it through me before you go talking to Ralph.” He sighed. “You may want to keep yourself pure and clean and out of the office politics, but one of us has to keep an eye on it. In fact, I think you’d better look at me as your political advisor on this one, as well as your sponsor.”

      That seemed fair enough since his neck was out even more than mine.

      “Well,” I said, standing up, “I better get going on this thing.” I had a last minute thought, “Who will I be coordinating with on the Human Resources end of things?”

      Stu just looked at me and didn’t say anything.

      I prompted him. “You know, with all the new machines, we’ll have to hire and train a bunch of people.” Stu still didn’t say anything and kept on looking at me. I started to get it. “Aw, Stu, “I sounded like a little kid whose bedtime had come half-way into his favorite TV show. “There’s a hell of a lot of work here. I don’t even know what I’m doing on the manufacturing side!”

      Stu finally spoke. “I’m not going to break this into a million little pieces and hope that everything will get done. The whole thing is part of the same big project, and I want it run that way.” I must have looked depressed because he added, “You won’t be all on your own, you know. With my help you can pull team members from every department, and they’ll be doing most of the work in their areas. But I want you coordinating the whole thing.”

      Resigned, I asked, “For the new systems as well?”

      “The whole thing,” Stu said. “Except for the marketing campaign and the actual roll-out, which Marketing will handle. I want you to coordinate it all.”

      Gathering Courage

      With those words ringing in my ears, I took my leave and headed back to my office. The more I thought about the whole thing, the more unhappy I was. Not only was this project important for the company, Stu’s hopes of promotion were riding on it too. It wasn’t that I minded pressure, it was just that projects always seemed to turn out poorly, or with mixed results at best. Hard as I had tried, I had never figured out a way to improve the result.

      If my budget was $1 million, Marketing would probably have nearly that amount too. Recreational products are very marketing intensive. Two million dollars was a lot of money for Hyler to invest, and that didn’t take into account the increase in operating expenses that would result from this product. Head office would never let Hyler go under, but it would let people’s careers get into serious trouble. If things didn’t go well, not only would Stu not be getting his promotion, but I would probably want to dust off my resume. All of this hanging on a project. I felt something funny happening in my stomach.

      My loyal department staff were not much help, either for my stomach or my lack of knowledge about projects.

      “Better dust off the old resume,” said Amanda Payton after I told her about my meeting with Stu. Amanda is my second in command in Information Systems, and one of my favorite people at Hyler.

      “It sounds like one of those projects that can really go down in flames!” She smiled encouragingly. To reduce her smugness to a more bearable level, I said, “Yes, no question it will be a challenge. But thank God I have you around to help! The project is going to take up a lot of my time over the next ten months, so I’ll be needing you to take over my responsibilities on a regular basis. Of course, we won’t be getting any extra people to help us here in IS, so you will still have your own stuff to look after.” I paused, and then because it didn’t sound like enough I added, СКАЧАТЬ