Elections Visibility Project

Contributed by Haresh Karamchandani

We recently responded to a newspaper advertisement soliciting suppliers for Election Visibility Materials for the upcoming National Elections on October 11, 2011.

Our Head of Operations (HOO) felt that it was a good opportunity for the company to experience since we have excellent contacts in the manufacture and printing industry in the USA.

There was a pre-bid meeting at the clients’ office which was attended by our HOO.

The client clarified that they needed us to quote for Printed T-shirts, Caps, Stickers, Folders and Banners. We were asked to present samples along with our respective quotes.

We got the samples manufactured by our US contact and air freighted them to Monrovia, which was presented to the client along with our bid.

As expected, our samples were the best in terms of quality and surprisingly our prices too were the cheapest on offer. The client selected NATC and then began the rigmarole of getting a suitable final design approved by them.

Below is the sequence of designs presented, amended, presented, and amended and amended until we arrived at the final approved design.

This was the first design presented:

Design no.2: They said the ballot box was too boring and wanted something in 3-D:

I got my guy in the US to get more creative and present something more colorful and exciting with a 3-D ballot box, here was the next design:

Then the client wanted us to add the words Trust Fund; we obliged herewith:

Then the client changed his mind again and asked us to add the words Basket Fund, here we went:

Then the client decided that the words were too lengthy and should be cut down as follows, we obliged again:

  

Then the client wanted to add Project Managed By, we did so:

Then the client asked for some more creativity and we came up with the below:

THIS WAS THE FINAL APPROVED DESIGN:

All these changes in design cost us a lot of time and money, but we finally had a satisfied client. The manufacturer in the USA was paid and they began mass production of the following:

• 2010 pcs of 4’x 6’ Flex PVC Banners
• 1000 pcs of T-shirts assorted sizes, both Polo and Round Neck
• 1000 pcs of Caps, Embroidered design!
• 5000 pcs of SAV stickers and
• 300 pcs of Folders

Front of the Cap

Back of the Cap

All the goods were shipped by Fedex and DHL and were received in time and supplied. We should be getting paid by the client in a few days.

Moral of the story: Even though it’s not your core line of business, if you are going to learn and experience something new and make some profit at the end then one must go for it.