Lowest Bidder

Executing Tender contracts with the Govt Institutions can run into bureaucratic rough weather during unexpected times. Recently I was attempting to untangle one such situation which involved the usual Tender contract variables; EMD (Earnest Money Deposit), BG (Bank Guarantee) & MLDs (Milestone linked deliverable). During one of the meeting with a senior official involving arguments & counter arguments, I reminded my hosts that we won the contract as the lowest bidder after a grueling selection procedure involving about 45 contestants (including some big name IT Cos). And to drive home my point (and also ease up the rather serious atmosphere) I narrated him an anecdote;

I said there was this Psychologist who asked one of the American Astronauts what he was thinking about as he strapped himself to his spacecraft on the rocket which was to hurl him into space. To this the Astronaut replies “ All I keep thinking is that everything that makes this thing go up was supplied by the lowest bidder”!

I guess I had hit the Bulls eye when the discussion took a more positive turn and the official lightened up enough to say that would look into the matter and proceeded to give me two ways out of the tangle.