Before you say yes to the big contract

The problem it solves

The contract arrives after two years of knocking on the same door, and the internal conversation lasts about as long as the excitement does. Nobody is lying when they say the company can handle it. What has not happened yet is setting the promised volume against the capacity that exists today: a team already working full weeks, a supplier who has always delivered on small orders, the space on hand, the one person who knows how to unstick the difficult step.

What follows has a recognisable order. The operation stretches first. Then people are hired in a hurry and trained halfway. Then errors show up in work that used to come out clean, and they show up with the long-standing clients rather than the new one, because those are the clients nobody has time for any more. The owner goes back into the operation, managers stop managing, and work gets allocated by urgency instead of by priority.

Left alone, the ending repeats itself. The large client is served at half the standard that was promised, two older accounts leave without anyone noticing in time, someone from the original team resigns, and the year closes with more revenue, thinner margin and a delivery reputation that will take a while to rebuild.

What it covers

The workshop is built around one specific opportunity: the one on the table, the one expected next quarter, or the one accepted recently that has not started yet. The first part is a capacity check worked through on a worksheet, area by area: delivery, staffing, space, equipment and suppliers. The question is not whether the company could do it. The question is what would have to be true to do it without damaging what already works.

With that picture in front of them, the group runs a scenario analysis on the jump in volume. Which process stops working first, where errors begin once work piles up, and what happens to a supplier's lead time when the order changes size. Participants also name the people the operation depends on and discuss what preparation their cover needs before the increase rather than during it.

The third part deals with the gap between when the company spends and when it collects, because a large contract pulls payroll, materials and equipment forward while pushing revenue back. Through a case discussion the group examines what that gap demands of a business and which conditions change it without touching price: a staged start, a delivery sequence, payment terms, scope broken into phases.

The closing section is planning work. Each participant orders a preparation sequence around what has to be settled before committing, and drafts the conditions under which their company would accept. They also rehearse the conversation in which those conditions are put to the client, since raising them late is much the same as not having them, and the group discusses the legitimate case for declining: the opportunity that was right for a different company and not for this one.

What participants learn

• Evaluate real delivery, staffing and supplier capacity before committing to volume.
• Identify which processes stop working first once the work multiplies.
• Analyse the gap between the spending a contract pulls forward and the point at which it is collected.
• Prioritise the preparation sequence instead of trying to fix everything at once.
• Define the conditions for accepting, and the criteria that justify turning the work down.

Agenda

1. 01Capacity check: delivery, staffing, space and suppliers
2. 02What breaks first when volume climbs
3. 03Quality under pressure: where the errors begin
4. 04Critical people, and preparing cover before the surge
5. 05Suppliers: lead times, alternatives and unwritten commitments
6. 06Preparation sequence: what is handled before signing
7. 07Conditions for accepting, and the legitimate case for declining

What the organisation leaves with

• A written capacity check on the opportunity they brought into the room, covering delivery, staffing, space and suppliers.
• A list of the people the operation depends on, with named cover and what still needs preparing in each case.
• A dated preparation sequence, ordered by what has to be settled before any commitment is made.
• A written set of acceptance conditions the company can take into its next conversation with the client.