In Memory of Itzik, a Gifted Man

A very senior, energetic and gifted man at Rafael (Israel's state-owned defense developer) asked me to accompany his department (I don't remember if that's the exact term) as it competed against Elbit for a very large project.

As far as I remember, he had taken part in a marketing course I gave for Rafael's senior management.

His name was Itzik A. He was killed in a car accident many years ago.

This story is in his memory.

I went to visit Rafael's northern site and tried to get to grips with the situation.

I learned that the customer was the IDF, buying through the Procurement Directorate, that the main competitor was, as I said, Elbit, and that we were talking about a very large deal with long timelines to signing, and then to delivery.

I realized I needed someone from Rafael at my side to coordinate between me and the people on the project. I would have preferred the head of the department himself, but he told me he could devote "1/16 of my time" to it... (an engineer's expression I will never forget).

Naturally, I didn't settle for that, and someone else was assigned to work with me.

In those years Elbit was at the peak of its growth and success. Its sales skills abroad were legendary, not to mention its powerful, continuous and very effective work with the IDF. It had veteran representatives who specialized in the Procurement Directorate, spent most of their time there, and knew the system and the decision makers inside out.

Rafael, on the other hand, did not shine at marketing in those years.

Its gifted engineers (quite a few of them with PhDs) knew how to come up with professional solutions and put them in writing as "price proposals" and "position papers", but they had no connection whatsoever to the world of sales.

I heard that in some cases the Ministry of Defense passed the technical sections written by Rafael's people on to its competitors and asked them to submit pricing based on them...

The Elbit representative on this project was a veteran: well connected, sophisticated and, if you'll pardon me, extremely arrogant. Rafael's man at the Procurement Directorate, by contrast, was a gray clerk type who focused on submitting documents on time and giving tidy responses to every whim of the customer.

It was clear to me that under these conditions Elbit would walk away with the project. Rafael's people thought so too, and rightly got weak at the knees every time they had to go up against Elbit.

We built a comprehensive solution that focused, among other things, on a technical area where Elbit was weaker than Rafael.

To break the belief in Elbit's superiority once and for all, I asked that Itzik handle this project personally. But I made sure that everyone else involved, and especially the people at Elbit, would think that this project, like the others, was being handled by the same technocrat clerk they all knew.

To make sure of it, Itzik and I sent that clerk to the Procurement Directorate again and again, knowing full well that his very presence would be seen and reported.

Some of the time we armed him with distorted information and with questions to put to the project officers and the Directorate staff on his visits. All this in the knowledge that the Elbit rep was using his excellent connections to collect that "information"...

Only once we were sure Elbit had swallowed the bait did Itzik himself make direct contact with the Procurement Directorate, gather the information he needed, and on that basis submit a competitive proposal completely different from the one that had been floated at first.

Rafael won the project. The fear of Elbit evaporated and the curse was lifted.

The moral:

"For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war," says the Book of Proverbs. To this day, many salespeople believe that price proposals are evaluated by a computer, or at least by very technical, very rational people who know how to weigh all the parameters optimally. People without emotions, able to judge reality in a pure way, untouched by any influence...

That was never true, and it isn't true today.

Decision makers, even in highly professional fields, are flesh and blood. They have preferences, you can identify in advance what influences them, and it's possible, even advisable, to bring some sophistication into the equation, as long as it doesn't cross into deception or fraud.

One more piece of advice: never underestimate your opponent. Arrogance is the mother of all sins.

The Elbit rep, so sure of himself, of his connections and of his experience, never imagined that his competitor was feeding him distorted information through a small fry, while working at the same time through a separate channel that was ten times more sophisticated.